Woman banned from keeping dogs after being convicted of illegal fox hunting
Claire Bellamy is the first person to be sentenced under Scotland's new fox hunting laws...
Last updated 9th Nov 2026
A woman from the Scottish Borders convicted of illegal foxhunting has today (Monday) been ordered to carry out 300 hours of unpaid work over the next 12 months as a direct alternative to custody.
Claire Bellamy, from Longformacus, Berwickshire, has also been banned from keeping dogs for the next ten years, with the exception of a terrier and all border collies.
She became the first person to be sentenced for carrying out an illegal fox hunt in Scotland under the Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Act 2023, after being convicted following a trial at Paisley Sheriff Court.
The 51-year-old led a pack of around 17 hounds in a wooded area between the villages of Houston, Renfrewshire, and Kilmacolm in Inverclyde in January 2025.
Permission for a legal hunt had been given by NatureScot, the Scottish Government body responsible for all aspects of nature, wildlife management and landscape.
However, Bellamy allowed her dogs to get the scent and then chase a fox in an open field which lay outwith the permitted boundaries as specified within the licence granted by Nature Scot.
The terms of the license were also not complied with as the dogs were not sufficiently under control.
Their activities were filmed by anti-hunt activists and the footage showed the hunt had gone into undesignated areas, making it illegal.
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Iain Batho, who leads on wildlife crime for the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS), said: “The law in Scotland allows Nature Scot to grant licences which allow individuals to hunt for foxes using two or more dogs. Such licenses can only be granted for limited, prescribed purposes.
"The licenses granted will ordinarily have specific terms which are designed to ensure the hunt is limited to its prescribed purposes and to prevent foxes suffering unnecessarily.
“It is the duty of those who have been granted such licenses to strictly adhere to the terms of the license. On this occasion Claire Bellamy failed to do so and has now faced the consequences of that.
“The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service takes illegal fox hunting seriously and action will be taken by specialist prosecutors in the COPFS Wildlife and Environmental Crime Unit, where there is sufficient evidence and where it is in the public interest to do so.”
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The court previously heard Bellamy had carried out 1,500 hunts in Scotland in her three-decade-long fox hunting career and is the former huntswoman of the Lauderdale Hunt.
She could have been jailed for up to 12 months, or fined up to £40,000, after breaching the Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Act 2023.
Robbie Marsland is director at animal welfare charity, League Against Cruel Sports. He told Greatest Hits Radio: "We welcome the sentence which will ensure that a prolific fox hunter can hunt no more.
"What's shocking though is that her hunt was licensed by NatureScot in the first place. We spent two years complaining to NatureScot about how the way they administer these licenses, and that's why we've launched a legal challenge against NatureScot about the way they issue those licenses."
In response, NatureScot confirmed: “We have received the petition for judicial review and we will respond within the legal timeframes.”
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