Police have continued to respond to concerns around hare coursing, which is impacting rural communities in the county.

Yesterday afternoon (Tuesday 19 November), police received reports of two suspected hare coursing incidents in progress in the rural Basingstoke & Winchester areas.

The first related to reports of a Mitsubishi Shogun damaging fields in Laverstoke and Tufton. 

As police were responding to this, a report came in of the second incident involving a Volkswagen Golf.

The police helicopter was deployed which located three men with dogs on farmland near to Bullington Cross. These individuals were seen to run into a wooded area before running through fields.

Three men with dogs were later detained for a search by police. Two lurcher type dogs were seized and mobile phones were seized from the men.

Our investigation will now commence and we will endeavour to notify you when we have significant updates to share.

If you become aware of a hare coursing incident in progress, or suspicious vehicles active on private land, please dial 999 when this is happening. We recognise the impact this type of offending has on individual landowners, in addition to the risk posed by rural criminals who are often involved in other offences such as violence, theft and burglary.

For non-urgent matters, such as sharing information with police about issues that have happened in your area, please call 101, or report information to us at www.hampshire.police.uk