A Scottish court has convicted a former Lauderdale Hunt official of deliberately hunting a fox with dogs outside the area covered by a wildlife-management licence. The ruling is significant because it is understood to be the first conviction of a registered fox hunter under the Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Act 2023—not the first time Scotland has prohibited fox hunting, and not the first conviction of any kind under the 2023 Act.
Claire Bellamy, 51, a former master and huntswoman with the Lauderdale Hunt, was found guilty at Paisley Sheriff Court on October 5, 2026. The case concerned an outing at Kirkton Wood, between Houston and Kilmacolm, in January 2025. Footage recorded by hunt monitors showed hounds pursuing a fox beyond the boundaries where the hunt’s NatureScot licence permitted activity.
What the court decided
Bellamy argued that the hounds had escaped her control and that she was trying to recall them. After reviewing the video evidence, Sheriff Sukhwinder Gill rejected the claim that the pursuit was accidental and found that Bellamy had deliberately hunted a fox with dogs outside the licensed area. The conviction was reported on October 6 and 8 by Scottish news outlets and hunting-monitor groups that supplied the footage.
The distinction matters. A separate case at Wick Sheriff Court had already produced a conviction under the same Act after a man admitted using a dog for hare coursing in 2024. Bellamy’s case is therefore best described as the first known conviction involving a registered fox-hunting figure under the new law, rather than Scotland’s first conviction under the Act overall.
What Scotland’s 2023 law actually changed
The Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Act 2023 came into force on October 3, 2023. It repealed and replaced the Protection of Wild Mammals (Scotland) Act 2002, under which traditional fox hunting had already been illegal for more than two decades.
The newer law tightened the framework. It makes hunting a wild mammal using a dog an offence unless a statutory exception applies. For most permitted activities, no more than two dogs may be used unless NatureScot grants a licence for a larger number. The law also requires dogs to be kept under control and prohibits trail hunting in which dogs are directed to follow an animal-based scent.
According to the Scottish Government’s 2024 wildlife-crime report, the Act’s exceptions cover defined purposes such as preventing serious damage to livestock, crops or other property, environmental benefit, and locating an injured wild mammal. These are regulated activities, not a general permission to conduct traditional mounted hunts.
Why the licence boundary was central
NatureScot can license the use of more than two dogs in limited circumstances. In the Lauderdale case, the existence of a licence did not give the hunt unrestricted authority across the countryside. The prosecution focused on what happened when the hounds pursued the fox outside the authorised area and on whether they were under effective control.
That makes the verdict an important enforcement test. A law can set strict limits on paper, but its protective value depends on investigators documenting suspected breaches, prosecutors bringing viable cases, and courts assessing whether claims of accidental loss of control match the evidence.
A cautious milestone for wildlife protection
The conviction does not mean every legal controversy around hunting with dogs in Scotland has been resolved. Animal-protection groups have continued to question how licences are issued and monitored, while land managers argue that dogs may sometimes be needed to flush foxes from dense cover to protect livestock. Those debates will continue.
What the verdict establishes is narrower and more concrete: a licence has boundaries, dogs must remain under control, and a deliberate pursuit outside the authorised area can lead to criminal liability. For foxes and other wild mammals, that enforcement signal may be as important as the wording of the statute itself.
Scotland did not “just ban fox hunting” in 2026. It strengthened its law in 2023, and a court has now applied that law to a registered hunting figure. Describing the timeline accurately does not diminish the importance of the result—it shows why this conviction matters.
Sources
- Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Act 2023
- Scottish Government: Wildlife Crime in Scotland 2024—Hunting with dogs
- Hunt Saboteurs Association: court report and case footage summary, October 8, 2026
- Aberdein Considine: Hunting with dogs—the rules
