Mike Huskisson reports on an insider's view of the Burns Inquiry. The following are extracts from his visit to the Waterloo Cup Hare Coursing event at the Withins on 22nd February 2000.

The arrangement was for the Inquiry them to rendezvous at the Countryside Alliance tent at The Withins at 10.00a.m. The coursing card for the day shows at the bottom "First Brace in slips at 9.30a.m."

I arrived at the tent on time and met Simon Hart. No-one from the Inquiry was present. The coursing had started. Lord Burns, Lord Soulsby and Brian Caffarey arrived at about 10.30a.m. They were introduced to prominent officials from the Countryside Alliance. The Hon. Secretary of the Waterloo Cup Coursing Club, Ronnie Mills, was introduced to us as our guide for the day.

Soon afterwards Ken Livingstone MP arrived with a considerable media entourage.

We called in at the Countryside Alliance tent and it was at about this time that I was tackled by Lord Soulsby who clearly felt that I had misled him regarding the movement of hares to the Waterloo Cup.

The previous day when driving him to the Thurlow Hunt visit I told him that they regularly shipped hares to the Waterloo Cup. I said that they needed a lot of hares for the Waterloo Cup (it is a 64 dog stake and there are two subsidiary competitions, the Waterloo Plate and the Waterloo Purse) and it could only happen because they had in the past netted hares in other parts of the country and moved them up. I was at pains to stress that they were not moving them up and releasing them from boxes on the day. I said that we had no proof as to exactly when they moved them up but there had been something in their rules to the effect that it should be no less than six months beforehand.

Lord Soulsby was under the impression that I had told him that hares were shipped up for the Waterloo Cup being run at that instant. Conversely he had spoken to one of our opponents who had denied that hares had been shipped up in her memory. There then followed a brief dispute between myself and a Countryside Alliance representative as to what the National Coursing Club rules on the topic were. I mentioned the six month rule but this was laughed at. When I invited her explanation as to what the current rules actually were regarding the movement of hares for coursing nothing was forthcoming.

I invited Sir Mark Prescott to come and explain to Lord Soulsby exactly what the situation was regarding the movement of hares to the Waterloo Cup. He was pleased to oblige.

Lord Burns was keen to see the arrival of the march of people protesting at the cruelty of coursing and we moved to watch. He asked to speak to someone on the march so that he could have a discussion with them. He had previously cleared the proposal with one of the senior police officers. I was pleased to help but to be honest with all the cacophony of noise I am not sure that much could be heard.

Lord Burns then expressed a keenness in seeing the coursing from the crowd stood on the bank side. Ronnie Mills was happy to oblige so he led Lord Burns, Brian Caffarey, Simon Hart and myself round to the bank side. Lord Soulsby did not join us. Instead he wandered off in the direction of the Countryside Alliance hospitality tent. He had earlier remarked to me how good their Game Soup was.