REGARDING David Stoker's "Foxy Claims" missive in the BEN on April 18, in which Mr Stoker, by quoting statements made by Members of the House of Lords about the Burns Report into hunting with dogs, attempts to mislead.
If he quoted accurately, and I presume he did, the sentence attributed to Lord Soulsby stating that the Burns Committee did "at no point conclude, or even attempt to conclude, an assessment of cruelty" in the hunting of wild animals with dogs, can not be interpreted as meaning it is not cruel.
The Committee, if we believe the statements, seems to have by-passed this matter, although Mr Stocker would have us believe that, by inference, there is no cruelty. Come on Mr Stocker, you surely can do better than thinking we are to be hoodwinked by syntax. Cruelty and its application to others, human or animal, is very much a matter of personal standards. But your denying any cruelty at all exists in fox hunting is, most of us believe, simply self deluding. That the Burns Committee did not assess cruelty does not mean that it does not exist. To be syntactic myself, may I say that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Ernest Goodyear
Albert Road West
Heaton, Bolton.
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