On Friday I wrote about how wildlife TV presenter and conservationist Chris Packham CBE is taking legal action against Fieldsports Channel Ltd (FCL) and one of their journalists after they published what Chris’s lawyers describe as ‘defamatory and unfounded’ material about him last year (see here).
A letter of claim from Chris’s legal team was sent to Fieldsports Channel Ltd on 20th January 2023 – this isn’t privileged information- it’s known because FCL decided to publish the legal correspondence online for anyone to read.
A few weeks after legal proceedings began, FCL attended the Great British Shooting Show at the NEC in Birmingham on 17-19 February 2023. This show has been described as ‘The UK’s largest shooting show‘ and it’s where thousands of visitors can see ‘a vast range of shotguns, rifles, pistols, air rifles, optics, including specialised night vision & thermal imaging devices…‘ etc. FCL, along with many other traders, had a stand.
Here is a photo of how Fieldsports Channel Ltd chose to decorate their stand at this national gun show. It’s a mocked up ‘trophy room’ where various distorted images of Chris’s head were displayed as trophy mounts, presumably to resemble souvenirs of a kill:
If this isn’t tantamount to inciting hatred, I don’t know what is. I can’t envisage how any reasonable person would see it as anything else.
Not only did FCL have a mocked up ‘trophy room’ on their stand, they also had a large arrow sign suspended from the ceiling encouraging their visitors to ‘Poke Packham Here‘. Poke him with what? The barrel of a shotgun??
I imagine that most attendees at a national gun show are law-abiding people with a professional or personal interest in firearms and shotguns. But it only takes one person suffering from mental health issues with legitimate (certified) access to firearms/shotguns to wreak havoc, often with tragic consequences. We’ve seen dreadful evidence of this recently after gun rampages in Plymouth, Epsom, and on the Isle of Skye, committed by individuals who the police considered fit to hold firearms / shotgun certificates.
But anyone already predisposed to hating Chris and wanting to cause him harm (and let’s face it, there is plenty of evidence that these people do exist within the fieldsports community), might well be emboldened by this ‘trophy wall’ and the sign encouraging aggression towards Chris, and decide to do the unthinkable. Those in the fieldsports community have legitimate and easy access to guns.
For Christ’s sake, he’s already received death threats, of which FCL is well aware given they’re being sued in relation to their publication about one of them. He also suffered a terrifying arson attack at his home in October 2021.
How bloody irresponsible are these people, and that goes for the show organisers, too, who presumably permitted this disgraceful display?
The threat of violence to Chris is very, very real. Charlie Jacoby of Fieldsports Channel Ltd knows this, as it was the reason why Chris (and Mark Avery) were ‘uninvited’ from speaking with Jacoby at the Game Fair in 2019:
Yesterday evening Chris published a video on Twitter about online abuse. In the video, Chris says this:
“The level of perceived threat to myself and my family is now palpable. I sometimes leave or return to my home, wondering if someone will be there waiting. Someone so excited by these accusations that they feel motivated to extreme violence. That’s where I’m at”.
Chris’s address was posted online at the weekend (now removed) by a contributor to the Fieldsports Channel Ltd Facebook page.
Here is the video in full:
I’ve set up a crowd funder to help Chris defend his reputation and clear his name against the ‘defamatory and unfounded’ allegations made by Fieldsports Channel Ltd, and others. The response has been incredible, with hundreds of decent people standing in solidarity with him. If you’d like to contribute, please click here.
As I said on Friday’s blog, making defamatory or even derogatory remarks about the defendants in these libel actions is unhelpful and actually counter-productive as they could undermine Chris’s cases. Comments on this blog will be closely moderated (more so than usual!). Far better to show your support for Chris by participating with the crowd funder.
Thank you.
Raptor Persecution UK 
Utterly horrific, and mind-boggling. Has inspired me to contribute to the fund, though.
These people should be [Ed: rest of comment deleted as libellous]
Is there anything that can be done about that trophy wall legally? Happy to contribute to a crowd fund. The organiser needs to take responsibility for this – it’s wrong on a multitude of levels and even more so in the context of the attacks.
xxxxxxxxx people think they’re above the law and unfortunately it’s been proved too many times that they are!
I trust the above information will be shown to Chris’s legal team? In the meantime, dear Chris and Ruth, thank you for all you do. Your work is vital, inspiring and a help through these times of awakening. There are many, many of us trying to do our bit.
Absolutely disgraceful!
FCL are bound to try and say “where’s your sense of humour / it’s just a bit of fun” and all that. It isn’t. It is playing with fire, and in my personal opinion they probably know it is. They and similar channels are bereft of material good enough to convert sceptics or neutrals to the shooting industry side, but xxxxx xxxxx overt “Packham bashing” is popular with the grassroots and makes them appear to their subscribers like they are at least doing something.
Packham is a sad and deluded individual with no knowledge of the countryside and how things work. He deserves every bit of anything he gets, this is just light hearted humour directed at a nasty little creature akin to something found in my dogs intestines.
Hello moderators….is this vile comment not deemed ‘derogatory’ enough. Or is it that only no hurty words are permissible against these horrible animal and bird slaughterers. ?
There you have it, folks: the true face of the plastic “countryside” lobby. Mr Hill illustrates perfectly how these people are just too thick to know when to stop digging.
So tell us, O sage, what knowledge you have of the ‘countryside .’ I’m sure countryside to you means the desert it is now. People with sensibilities like yours have no idea what countryside is unless it can be monetised. Crawl back into your dog’s intestines.
It’s kind of Mr Hill to give us a timely reminder of what this is all about. He has, no doubt, given the FCL Crowd Funder a significant boost!
Says a sad individual.
Chris is and always will be on the right side of the law, unlike many in your fraternity.
You call someone else deluded, whilst living in cloud cuckoo land? I can guarantee that in a refereed competition to see who could identify more species of the countryside in a day, that Chris Packham would wipe the floor with you, or any other of your self-styled experts on the countryside.
Bless.
No action is without its consequence. xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx. The only things we can take with us when we leave this earth are the good things we’ve done, the love we’ve shown to ourselves and others and everything on this beautiful planet. It might mean nothing to you now but it will do.
No doubt we can expect an immediate and comprehensive criticism of this stunt from leading members of the primary shooting organisations. Or am I being optimistic?
Surely the police are discussing potential offences with Chris Packham!
In my opinion, the people involved in showing that diabolical display at the British Shooting Show each individually took a role in deliberately attempting to threaten Chris.
Public Order Act 1986
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1986/64/section/4A
S4A
Intentional harassment, alarm or distress.
(1) A person is guilty of an offence if, with intent to cause a person harassment, alarm or distress, he— …
(b) displays any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening, abusive or insulting, thereby causing that or another person harassment, alarm or distress.
(2) An offence under this section may be committed in a public or a private place ….
It’s a shame that Chris has abused his position as a member of the BBC an organisation that is supposed to be impartial. He appears to be playing to the fringe of the urban sprawl who believe they know best how to manage the countryside and are making it harder for farmers to provide food. The UK is loosing the ability to feed itself and is simply moving food production to country’s that are destroying countryside to feed us. Please support the countryside, please support farming, please support farmers.
I live in the countryside & fully support Packham as do plenty of people, including many farmers – we have farmers in this area who fence off some areas (so livestock cannot damage nests) for local rarities such as curlew through to more common species such as skylark, put up owl boxes etc. Plenty of farmers like wildlife (unsurprisingly they also take good care of their livestock)
Like the 99% of people who live in the countryside and want nothing to do with the Field Sports Society (100k members out of a 12.5 million rural population), I do support the countryside and I am sick of rich townies coming into our areas while some local perverts / entrepreneurs pander to their sickness and put up wildlife or imported birds to be killed by them for fun, whilst slaughtering any of our native wildlife that gets in the way of their profits.
I am fortunate to work with a whole bunch of farmers who, if not members, certainly subscribe to the methods of the Nature Friendly Farming Network and not the Luddite tendencies of the NFU cohort. They are putting their money where their mouths are to help local wildlife.
Chris Packham speaks far more for the majority of countryside dwellers than the likes of the CA, BASC, SGA, NGO, NFU, DEFRA & NE will ever do. If the police don’t go after this shower for xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx harassment and incitement to violence it will just underline the corruption in our judicial system when it comes to protecting the environment and our wildlife.
Hey, Dave, did you notice what’s top right on the trophy display? Would you care to comment on that?
And the Tuna: what have they done wrong?
Chris Packham, “a member of the BBC”?
You lot can’t even get THAT right, can you?
Dave, his views are irrelevant in this discussion. It is about whether one objects to or condones the types of tactics that have been deployed against him. Whether you want a healthy robust debate that has reasonable boundaries that nobody crosses with impunity, or you wish to stand idly by and in effect sponsor a general descent into abuse and intimidation. On which side of that fence do you fall?
You can’t even spell properly, “loosing” indeed 😆 And “support farmers”! Hah! Maybe when they’re worth supporting by themselves supporting good, honest animal welfare/husbandry & start telling the truth, e.g. about how the badger cull isn’t & will never be effective let alone justifiable until they up their game, instead of hiding behind the NFU bully brigade who half the time can’t even lie straight in bed. THAT’S abuse of position & lack of impartiality for you.
Bother – top left, dyslexia again.
Interesting debate. I have only met Mr Packham once, when he enthused about falconry with a group of school children at a Festival of Falconry in Berkshire. What I find offensive are personal and often physical attacks on individuals with opposing views. I often disagree with Mr Packham, sometimes vehemently, but I would always expect passionate but reasoned debate. Mud slinging is totally ridiculous. It reminds me of the oft-quoted statement that when Hitler is used in your argument, you have lost.
I say this having had very personal contact with ‘sabs’ whose sole purpose was my physical injury rather than discussion.
For this reason I agree that Fieldsports TV is out of order. I would hope that if they were to apologise Mr Packham would have the good grace to accept and donate money raised to a good cause such as tree planting.
I await God’s Apocalypse any day, when a new Earth will come into existence, and the compassionate will inherit the Earth forever. Who wants to live in a world of snares, traps, poisons, trophy shooters, warlords, traffickers of all kinds, nuclear weapons, maniacs and sadists. I praise those of courage who stalwartly defend the weak against those who cruelly assert their strength. Tawdry is my word those insulting Chris Packham, and thanks to those who kindly responded to this plea.
I don’t see why the police aren’t dealing with this. As a retired police officer I would have no problem with charging those responsible under the Public Order Act. Also not renewing their firearms or shotgun licences.
I believe the poster might come under the heading of Libel as it is printed matter, (although I could be wrong), but it is definitely highly distasteful, also extremely childish, which seems to be par for the course from such a company.
[Ed: For clarity, I don’t believe the poster is libellous]
I’ve said it before….I’m not sure there would be a better way for the general public to start feeling the way we do about a very large segment of the field ‘sports’ fraternity than by being forced to sit down and endure about three hours of the Field Sports Channel. Although their efforts are often risible at least the GWCT, the Moorland Association and ilk attempt to make the activities and members they represent acceptable to society at large. With the xxxxx FSC it’s purely by the huntin, fishin, shootin set for the huntin, fishin, shootin set, no filters, no window dressing, just who these people are and what they really think in the absolute raw.
Sick, sick, sick. There are proposals to tighten up the firearms regulations which are long overdue. It seems that the existing laws are sufficient but the police fail to enforce them, along with many more regulations surrounding the protection of raptors and wildlife. The police are under scrutiny at the moment and their failures in relation to these issues need to be addressed too.
101k pledged already – I bet that’s put the wind up a few people………
We know on whose behalf those further down the social level act. Their choice of advertising betrays the abusive minds they have if thus is used to sell deadly weapons and create income for themselves. They must believe that this approach is dominant in those who would purchase their ware.
Scary stuff — but — I’ve known it for years — and so have they.
Unbelievable. Well, no its not knowing who is ‘aiming’ at Mr Packham.
How can they get away with such? Surely it must be viewed as inciteful by the powers and laws that be?
Utterly detestable and deplorable.
I hope that all those involved can be prosecuted in some way; the evidence is clear to see just from those two deplorable images posted above
IMO only utterly depraved human beings would stage this hate, which so clearly emboldens the weak willed people who also have no conscience.
So many more people with morals support Chris and I hope he finds some solace in that.