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Mobile phone footage has captured the moment a hunt master told a married female activist he’d ‘quite like to shag’ her after she confronted him about illegal fox hunting.
Charles Carter, 33, was filmed telling the 41-year-old mother-of-four she was ‘very pretty’ before asking for her number and saying: ‘Can I take you to bed please?’
The Tory councillor, who has since been suspended, made the remarks after being challenged by activists during a meet of the Middleton Hunt in North Yorkshire.
Police confirmed they are investigating the incident, which happened on Monday, while constituents and animal rights activists have called for Carter to resign or be sacked.
The footage shows housewife Linda Hoggard confronting Carter while he is on horseback, dressed in a red hunting jacket and helmet, after allegedly seeing his hounds chasing a fox.
She begins: ‘Excuse me, did you know hunting was banned? Hunting is banned and I have seen video chasing a fox along there.
Hunting is banned so why are you still hunting? You still get away with it don’t you, you lot?’
Carter, who has represented the parish of Saham Toney, Norfolk, on Breckland Council since 2011, then takes his own mobile phone out, prompting the irate woman to retort: ‘What, you want to take a picture of me?’
He asks: ‘What’s your name?’ and she replies: ‘I couldn’t give a shit. It doesn’t matter what my name is. I’m not bothered.’
Carter then says calmly: ‘I’d quite like to shag you actually.’
Clearly taken aback, the woman says: ‘Yeah I’ll tell you something… pardon! I’ll tell my husband that then shall I?’
But the huntsman, whose girlfriend – according to Facebook – is international event rider Harriet Morris-Baumber, 28, continues: ‘Can I take you to bed please?’
Speaking to a friend who tries to calm the situation, the woman screams: ‘Shut up Charlotte, it’s fine, it’s fine,’ before Carter adds: ‘You’re very pretty.’
She retorts: ‘Oh yeah really, whatever. So are foxes before this lot rip them apart.’
He replies: ‘Can I have your number please?’ while she repeatedly says: ‘Smirk as much as you like.’
Carter then rides off without addressing the allegations that hounds belonging to the Middleton Hunt, who meet every Monday, were chasing a fox.
Fox hunting has been banned in England and Wales since 2005.
Mrs Hoggard, of Malton, North Yorkshire, was taking photos of wildlife on Monday afternoon when she spotted the Middleton Hunt.
She decided to stay with the riders and later snapped a photograph when she saw a fox run across a field, allegedly closely followed by hounds and the huntsmen.
The mother-of-four said: ‘I just went up to him on my own and said, “Did you know hunting is banned?” Because I am against fox hunting, it’s cruel.
I just thought I would go and see what his reaction would be.
I couldn’t believe it when he got his phone out. I said, “I’m not bothered,” but when he said that rude word I was taken aback. It didn’t go into my head.
Mrs Hoggard streamed the encounter live on Facebook. It has thousands of views
I said, ‘Pardon?’ For him to say it again was totally bang out of order – for an educated man to say something like that.
At the end of the day, no one should speak to you like that. I’m just a housewife and I have got children. For someone to say that is absolutely disgusting.
He wanted a reaction and he wanted me to get a***y, but I’m a better person than that.
He wanted me to grab hold of him and pull him off the horse so I would get done.’
She added: ‘The last couple of nights it has been going through my head. I didn’t even know he was a councillor at first. He should know better.
I’m glad he has been suspended. At the end of the day he has made his own bed, so let him lie in it.’
Mrs Hoggard, who says she has always been against fox hunting, streamed the encounter live on Facebook. The clip has since been viewed thousands of times.
According to Carter’s social media, he has been a hunt master and huntsman with the West Norfolk Foxhounds.
He’s also a ward member for Saham Toney where his role includes ‘looking after the affairs of the residents at a local government level’.
Since being elected in 2011 he’s been a councillor and has also worked as executive cabinet member for growth, though he resigned from that position last November.
His Facebook page states that he now lives three-and-a-half hours away in Birdsall, York, and works at Middleton Hunt, where he is the new hunt master.
It is not the first time the Middleton Hunt has come under scrutiny. In 2013, four hunt members admitted hunting a fox with a dog and were fined by York magistrates.
In 2015, North Yorkshire Police launched an investigation after footage of 16 fox cubs held in a barn near to the hunt’s kennels emerged.
The force said they are investigating the altercation between Carter and the hunt saboteur.
They said: ‘North Yorkshire Police were called at 10.38pm on Monday 23 January following reports that an altercation had taken place at 2.50pm earlier that day between a man and a woman in Duggleby, Malton.
‘Investigations are ongoing.’
William Nunn, leader of Breckland Council, said: ‘Having been made aware of the video this morning, I was appalled by the conduct of one of my Conservative councillors who has clearly brought the party and the council into disrepute as a result of his behaviour.
I immediately took action and the individual concerned has been suspended from the Conservative group at Breckland Council pending the outcome of a full investigation by the Mid Norfolk Conservative Association.’
Carter and the Middleton Hunt are yet to respond to requests for a comment.
Harriet Morris-Baumber, an event rider and trainer who has represented Great Britain, declined to speak.
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Source: Daily Mail
