A 36-year-old woman was recently sentenced for having assaulted three people; two of whom were under the age of 18. Megan Thornbury was sentenced on Monday, January 4th at Hereford Magistrates Court.

The three people who were assaulted had been following a local hunt. The incident occurred 22 months ago, on a farm in Herefordshire. It is claimed by one eyewitness and the Countryside Alliance, that Ms Thornbury was a member of a local hunt saboteur group.

Ms Thornbury, of Newnam on Severn, Gloucestershire, worked in a children’s nursery in Gloucester prior to the assault.

The people who were assaulted cannot be named for legal reasons. However, at the time of the assault, two of them were under the age of 18, and the mother of one was also injured when she attempted to intervene.

She told the Ross Gazette: “I can’t describe how it feels to see someone attack your son in front of you.”

She said that the Hunt Saboteurs had been following the hunt supporters during the day, but she explained that several of them quite liked her son, and got on quite well with him. “You can sometimes have some quite good conversations with them,” she said.

He had been talking to them about his GCSEs, so she explained they would have been able take an educated guess at his age. She said that her son had been leaning on Ms Thornbury’s car, talking to the group, when Thornbury shot out from her car, and assaulted him.

The young man’s mother explained she attempted to pull Ms Thornbury away from her son. “She grabbed a handful of my hair. I had a sore head for a week after,” she said.

Another member of the Hunt Saboteurs also attempted to break up the altercation.

Ms Thornbury pleaded not guilty, but was found guilty at Hereford Magistrates Court on December 15th. She failed to attend the trial, but was found guilty in her absence.

Megan Thornbury was sentenced to an 80 hour community order for unpaid work, with £50 compensation to be paid to each victim, £200 to be paid towards court costs and £60 to be paid towards a victim surcharge.

The mother added: “I thought she would have gotten a bigger sentence, considering she assaulted two kids under the age of 18."