Buffoon Nicholas Soames rides a quad bike with a youngster perched dangerously behind – days after a girl was killed on one of the four-wheelers.
The child had to balance on a pallet wedged behind the Mid Sussex MP as he illegally towed two more children in a trailer.
None of the youngsters was strapped in or wearing a crash helmet for the perilous journey along a country lane.
Police are now deciding whether to charge Mr Soames, 59, for traffic offences.
Witnesses were “gobsmacked” when the MP drove past with a trailer full of people chasing a New Year’s Day hunt.
Hunt monitor Maz Martins, 44, said: “The bikes can go fast.
He must have been doing about 20mph. If he’d had to brake fast someone would have been badly hurt. There was nothing to keep those children safe.”
It came less than a week after Elizabeth Cooke, seven, was killed riding a quad bike near her home in Essex. She died after being hit by a Range Rover.
But Mr Soames yesterday laughed at claims he put the children at risk as he followed the Crawley and Horsham Hunt on Hampshire Hill in Horsham.
He said: “Come on, we were following the hounds. What was I supposed to do? I don’t accept the children were at risk.
“I was only on the public road for a few hundred yards and it is hardly the M25. I was on the grass verge for most of the time.
“What with Darfur, Pakistan and Kenya, it’s hardly the biggest scandal of the moment.
“Those f*****s the hunt monitors are always out to get us in any way possible – and it’s a coup to get a Tory MP.”
But he added: “I hold my hands up, I was on a public road.
“I didn’t realise I was breaking the law but ignorance is no defence. I’m sorry.”
Riders need a V5 licence to use a quad bike on the highway.
They also need approval from the Department of Transport to to carry a passenger.
But even if these are obtained, a police source said it is “highly illegal” to carry children in a trailer on a public road.
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents slammed Mr Soames’ actions.
Head of road safety Kevin Clinton said: “All those children and adults are in danger. Even a minor collision would send them flying all over the road, with the possibility of injury or worse.”
Hunt Details
Source: Daily Mirror
