Boxing Day: the big day in the hunting calendar and, amid horrid scenes from hunts across the country, including footage of a sab vehicle being battered with a dead fox ¹, we got this from leading barrister, Jolyon Maugham:

Where do you start? What sort of person does that? And why? What sort of barrister, a QC no less, keeps a baseball bat handy, just in case? Further revelations from Mr Maugham included that he was wearing his wife Claire’s green kimono and was nursing a hangover with coffee at the time of the attack. The poor animal was trapped in netting near Mr Maugham’s chicken coop and Jolyon the Fox Batterer further excused his behaviour by explaining that the RSPCA were unavailable in Central London that day. ²

A one-off atrocity then, out of character from a man more used to a courtroom than a barroom brawl or, indeed, a baseball match, a man who has dedicated his not inconsiderable talent as a lawyer to taxation and to legal challenges to leaving the European Union. But wait, what about this tweet from November, some six weeks before he bludgeoned a fox to death in his garden, wearing his wife’s kimono?

Hard not to assume that the baseball bat is his weapon of choice, rather than just fell to hand, and was kept nearby for the explicit purpose of clubbing a fox to death. That’s not for us to determine, of course, that’ll be for the police, CPS and the courts. ³  Jolyon did, helpfully, ring the RSPCA and explain what he’d done once he realised that maybe his tweet hadn’t achieved overwhelming public support. It says a lot about his attitude to the fox’s life and cruel death that he thought it suitable material for his audience on Twitter.

So we say this: On this matter Mr Maugham, we are not on your side. We’re on the side of the fox.

We know a song about him:

Here comes Mr Superior

Here comes Mr Slightly Shocked

Here comes Mr Christmas Hangover

Here comes Mr Bash the Fox

Here comes Mr Green Kimono

Here comes Mr Property

Here comes Mr Tooth and Claw

Here comes Mr Atrocity

Oh yeah

Joly and the fox

Joly and the fox

Joly and the fox

Heseltine strangled his mum’s dog

Emily’s mum put down the cats

Walter Palmer killed Cecil the Lion

Now here comes the lawyer with the baseball bat

Oh yeah

Joly and the fox

Joly and the fox

Joly and the fox

Oh yeah

Here comes Mr Superior

Here comes Mr Bludgeon it to Death

Here comes Mr Devereux Chambers

Here comes Mr Fox’s last breath

Here comes Mr Waiting for Tax

Here comes Mr Sorry ‘Bout That

Here comes Mr Defender of Chickens

Here comes the lawyer with the baseball bat

Oh yeah

Joly and the fox

Joly and the fox

Joly and the fox

Heseltine strangled his mum’s dog

Skint Emily’s mum put down the cats

Walter Palmer killed Cecil the Lion

Now here comes the lawyer with the baseball bat

Oh yeah

Joly and the fox

Joly and the fox

Joly and the fox

Heseltine strangled his mum’s dog

Skint Emily’s mum put down the cats

Walter Palmer killed Cecil the Lion

Now here comes the lawyer with the baseball bat

Oh yeah

Joly and the fox

Joly and the fox

Joly and the fox

We know a song about him.

Steve

1. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/dec/27/police-investigate-film-of-man-hitting-van-with-dead-fox
2. We don’t know what their availability might have been, but you can always get hold of an emergency vet.
3. Wait, is that the sound of us collectively holding our breath? If you believe in petitions, signing this may help the CPS decide if a prosecution is in the public interest: https://www.change.org/p/cps-cps-to-investigate-and-prosecute-jolyon-maugham-for-cruelty-to-a-fox

 

P.S. Hat-tip to PJ for the reminders about Michael Heseltine and Emily Thornberry.