It was a typically tranquil day at the community shop in the picture postcard village of Broughton on the banks of the Wallop Brook in Hampshire. Delicious breads and tempting cakes were being delivered – the store prides itself on supporting local suppliers – while a stream of customers, including villagers and groups of walkers and cyclists who know it is as an ideal stopping off point, kept the volunteers busy.
The scene that greeted the shop workers a few days earlier could hardly have been more different, after the battered remains of about 50 hares and two birds of prey were dumped in the early hours outside the shop. Blood was smeared on the windows and the bodies of a kestrel and barn owl jammed in the door handles.
“It’s incredible that someone would do that, shocking,” said landscape painter Caroline Hall, a shop regular. “It’s such a privilege to see hares and birds of prey in the countryside around here. It was so cruel.”
Hampshire police are exploring the theory that the animals were killed and dumped by hare coursers, who set dogs on the mammals and livestream the chase for gamblers to bet on.
But why leave the carcasses outside the shop in Broughton, a village of about 1,000 inhabitants renowned locally for the dovecote in the churchyard said to have been gifted by Richard III?
“That’s the puzzle,” said Mike Hensman, treasurer of the shop. “We think it may just be location.” The village is roughly equidistant between the cities of Winchester, Salisbury and Southampton. It is surrounded by open farmland and chalky downland, good hare territory.
Salisbury Plain, another spot for coursing, is only a 25-minute drive away. The two pubs in the village, The Grey Hound and The Tally Ho!, are a sign that hunting is not an unfamiliar pursuit in the area.
“I don’t think it was a planned, targeted attack,” said Hensman. “Just one of those things that happens in the countryside. We’re a resilient lot. People were shocked but not scared and we’ve rallied round.”
It is not the first time there has been such an incident. Last month, about 25 dead hares, rabbits, pheasants and a decapitated deer were left outside a village primary school in Awbridge, 7 miles from Broughton. Villagers say there were two similar incidents at two other schools that have not made headlines. In January a deer was discovered strung up in a tree in the nearby town of Totton.
One Broughton resident, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals, said there was undoubtedly a pattern and that the Awbridge incident happened after a farmer confronted hare coursers using his land.
They said that a few days before the bodies were left at the Broughton shop, an attempted burglary in the village was thwarted. “What happens is, the gangs try to intimidate people. The animals are a message: ‘We can do what we want and you can’t catch us.’ There can be a ‘them and us’ situation too. This is a wealthy village. That can make us unpopular.”
Hare coursing has been banned in England and Wales since 2004. In 2022, amid concerns from farmers and police that it had, nevertheless, been growing in popularity, the UK parliament introduced new offences of trespass with intent to pursue hares and being equipped to search for or pursue hares.
Hampshire police have had some success tracking and prosecuting the hare coursers using the new law.
In September last year five men were sentenced after an investigation by the specialist country watch team into a group of men who drove on to farmland near Winchester, damaging crops, before hare coursing in a field. Police found the men with lurcher dogs, dead hares and two dead rabbits. Sentences included community orders, fines and bans on driving and owning dogs.
But it is a big patch to police and in January National Farmers Union members met officers in Hampshire to discuss an increase in hare coursing. One Hampshire estate has reported more than a dozen cases to the police since November.
After the incident at Broughton on Friday, Hampshire police found a burnt-out Suzuki Grand Vitara car they believe was connected. They are also examining the shop’s CCTV footage.
Country watch Sgt Stuart Ross said: “We know the effect this incident has had on the local community. Mindless criminal acts such as this will not be tolerated.”
Sue, the manager at the Broughton shop, said she and her family had lived in the area for generations. “Country life is hard,” she said. “It always has been and always will be but this was too much. Why us? Why were we selected? It’s horrid.”
