HOME Secretary David Blunkett yesterday issued a warning to hunt followers that Parliament's ban on their sport would be fully enforced by the police. Mr Blunkett said that any attempt to carry on fox hunting in defiance of the Hunting Act, passed last week by Parliament, would be a challenge to the whole basis of the legal system. At the same time, however, he said that he would expect the police to enforce the law with "sensitivity", in order to allow people to get used to the legal changes which come into force on February 18. And he made clear that there would be no extra money for chief constables to police the Act. Instead, he said they would have to rely on resources currently used to protect the hunts from saboteurs. "They'll use their resources wisely to protect people," he said in an interview with ITV1's Jonathan Dimbleby programme. Despite threats by hunt supporters to defy the law, as well as warnings of a campaign of civil disobedience, Mr Blunkett said that he hoped confrontation could be avoided. "I want common sense from those who want to go out with their horses and hounds and I want common sense in terms of the operational use of police resources and if we can get that right, then what looks at the moment to be a very major challenge will turn out not to be," he said. However, he said that if people were determined to break the law they would be dealt with by the police. "Let me make it absolutely clear - there is no question that the law will have to be obeyed and that the law will have to be implemented and therefore the police will take action where and whenever they think it's necessary to do so," he said.. "If they deliberately say 'look we're going to break this law because we don't agree that our democratic parliament should have voted this way', then of course the police have to take action. "Because the challenge is not just about hunting with hounds to kill a fox or a deer, it's actually a challenge to the basis of our legal system." Yesterday, senior police officers warned that policing the ban would impose an added burden on them. The Association of Chief Police Officers' spokesman on rural affairs, Suffolk Chief Constable Alastair McWhirter, said they would be looking to ministers for guidance what priority they should give the issue. "This is an additional burden. It is going to be challenging. We are going to deal with what Parliament has passed. That is what our job is," he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme. Pro-hunt campaigner Otis Ferry, son of rock star Bryan who was one of the protesters who broke into the Commons chamber, warned that hunt supporters would create "mayhem" in the run-up to the general election. However, Education Secretary Charles Clarke said that he believed that the predictions of trouble had been "overstated". "I believe the extent of people wanting to break the law will be far less than people fear," he said. | 
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