A PACK of hunting hounds has been filmed marauding through a private garden, blocking a busy road and risking public safety.

The garden’s owner Bill Butler has questioned how the hounds could have been following a previously laid trail, the legal method which must be employed by hunts, but end up rampaging through his garden.

Campaign group the League Against Cruel Sports released the film today after it was captured by its Animal Crimewatch service which monitors fox-hunting “sports.”

The incident took place in the village of Sherston in Wiltshire earlier this month and involved hounds belonging to Gloucestershire-based Duke of Beaufort’s Hunt. 

Mr Butler, who owns the property where the hounds ran amok and reported the incident, said: “I was disgusted by what they were up to as they must have been chasing a fox rather than following a trail.

“The arrogance of the hunts is breath-taking in that they think can do what they like with no respect for other people and the law.”

The league said that evidence gathered annually shows trail hunting — the excuse often used by hunts in court — is a “sham and smokescreen for old-fashioned illegal hunting.”

Emma Judd, the league’s head of campaigns, said: “More and more shocking videos of hunts are emerging that show the widespread and prolific scale of hunting still going on in the countryside despite the ban.”

She urged the public to continue sending evidence and called for the hunting ban to be applied effectively.

The Duke of Beaufort Hunt was invited to comment.