AS a hunt monitor for the past 10 years, I have witnessed the cruelty involved in hunting foxes with packs of dogs.

However, what shocks me now is the police attitude as voiced on newscasts leading up to the ban. Quite unashamedly they have stated that policing the ban will be a low-level priority. Why has this not been the case while the hunt has been legal?

I have been flabbergasted by the numbers of police that routinely attended the hunt meets, on horseback, in off-road vehicles, on foot. Police cars and vans parked on verges down quiet country roads for hours at a time. Most vividly, I recall being followed by three police for almost two hours while walking with two other women on public footpaths.

I'm sure police will say they were there to 'keep the peace', but at each hunt I have attended the police grossly outnumbered those perceived to be 'antis'.

It has also been reported that when the ban is in force, police will not go on private land to see if hunts are breaking the law. Can we expect the same laissez-faire attitude on any other seemingly controversial law?

Hunting foxes with packs of hounds is simply barbaric, a remnant of a bygone age. After ten votes overwhelmingly in favour of a ban in ten years, democratically expressing the will of the British public, it is well past time for an end to hunting with hounds and now time for the police to enforce it with an equal will to that they have spent defending it.

CATH ENS, Widemarsh Street, Hereford.