SIR - On behalf of the current serving Trustees of the RSPCA Worcester & Mid-Worcestershire Branch, I wish to add clarity to a reference made by Mr J Burgess in the letters page of January 9.

Mr Burgess quotes that prior to the Hunting Act coming in to force in February 2005 members of our Branch Committee visited the Worcester Hunt kennels to view breeding records.

An invitation to visit the kennels at that time was made by the Worcester Hunt to members of the local RSPCA Committee. Three members of the LACS accepted the invite with the very intention of viewing the hound breeding records, as this would have given strength to the argument of hounds destruction. It is worth pointing out however that during their visit, the three members of the LACS group were not permitted to view those records.

I fail to see the point Mr Burgess is struggling to make with this. Times have moved on, the majority of the public in this country abhor the practice of hunting an animal to exhaustion an dan ultimate agonising death being torn apart. When the Act came into force, an outright ban is what the public wanted and indeed expected. In the following years, 280 successful prosecutions have been brought against the hunting fraternity which is solid proof of audacious intent to break the law of the land.

Whatever Mr Burgess hoped to insinuate by drawing our Branch into the debate is unclear. What is clear, however, is that the present-day serving Branch Trustees are in total agreement in opposing the cruel treatment of any animal. There can be no better example of base intent to inflict fear and pain on an animal than hunting it with a pack of dogs, and we fully support the present Act to ban the practice.

R BOOKER Chairman, RSPCA Worcester & Mid-Worcestershire Branch.