A leading huntsman set 50 baying hounds on police after threatening to kill his former lover’s boyfriend, a court heard yesterday. As the officers retreated, Richard Chapman taunted them by shouting: ‘You’re useless. You can’t catch me.’

Mr Peter McKnight, prosecuting, told magistrates at Macclesfield, Cheshire, that Chapman – assistant to Master of the Hounds for the Cheshire Forest Hunt – terrorised Annabel Gillow after their romance ended. She and builder Nick Furnival were at her home when Chapman left death threats on her answering machine. Chapman later drove to Miss Gillow’s cottage, smashed a window and made further threats. He turned the dogs on police when they went to question him at hunt kennels he managed at Peover, near Knutsford.

Chapman admitted obstructing police, criminal damage and threatening behaviour. He denied make a threat to kill and driving with excess alcohol, but was convicted and put on probation for 12 months, fined £250 and banned from driving for three years.

Published in the Daily Mail, 9th June 1994