I would like to appeal to those people who took the trouble to write letters to their MPs asking them to support a ban on the barbaric practice of hunting.

The Hunting Act has been routinely broken since it came on to the statute book.

Hunters have only to claim an "accident" when their hounds chase or kill a fox and the case is dismissed by the Crown Prosecution Service.

So hounds are taken into a copse, run through it, noses down, for long periods, and yet when a fox bolts and the hounds chase it, hunts say this was an "accident".

This despite the fact that it is exactly the same practice as that was always used by fox hunts to find a fox to hunt. Cub hunting still takes place, with a bird of prey taken along as a convenient, if farcical, prop to support a "falconry" excuse. Terriermen still accompany every fox hunt exactly as before.

So the wishes of the people, and their elected representatives, are being arrogantly and brutally ridden over.

Hunters' champion David Cameron, despite his claims to be keen on law and order, has given them a "cast iron commitment" to actually reward their lawless behaviour with a repeal of the Act they so detest.

Please now write another letter, to Gordon Brown asking the Government to urgently amend the Hunting Act, so that our wild animals can be protected as intended.

Penny Little Great Haseley Oxfordshire