FOX-HUNTING campaigner Ken Holmes plans to go to a Yorkshire high security prison and urge the governor to lock him away - so he cannot break the ban on the rural pursuit.

The 73-year-old former horse dentist says he will go to Armley Prison in Leeds in a protest aimed at highlighting the "stupidity" of banning hunting with dogs.

Mr Holmes will make his protest with terriers, Panda and Jack, on February 18 - the day the new Hunting Act comes into force. It will ban not only fox-hunting, but also deer hunting and hare coursing with dogs in England and Wales.

A regular winner of the Kiplingcotes Derby horse race in East Yorkshire, Mr Holmes, from Cliffe, near Selby, has hunted vermin with terriers for more than 50 years.

He says the Act will continue to allow him to hunt rabbits and rats, but not other animals like mice, moles and foxes.

"It's time to put up or shut up," he said.

"There is a lot of talk about this issue, but I'm prepared to put my liberty on the line.

"I will go to Armley Prison, knock on the door and demand that the governor lets us in to protect us from the police.

"How can I stop my terriers chasing a fox or a mouse?"

"They are bred to hunt and they love it." But it looks like Mr Holmes might not get the reception he hopes for when he turns up at Armley.

A spokesman for the Prison Service said absolutely no action would be taken if someone simply turned up at a prison, unless they went on to commit a crime.

He said: "Offences in the Hunting Bill are not imprisonable. If people are sent to prison in connection with illegal hunting, it will be because they have committed some other offence as well, such as causing unnecessary suffering to wild mammals under wildlife legislation, or failing to pay a fine imposed for an offence under the Hunting Bill."

Pro-hunt campaigners recently lost their High Court challenge over the law banning hunting with dogs in England and Wales.

The Countryside Alliance had argued the law was unsound as the 1949 Parliament Act used to pass it was itself invalid. But judges said the Act was legitimate.

Campaigners have been granted leave to appeal against the ruling and may ask for an injunction delaying the ban pending the appeal decision.

Updated: 10:22 Tuesday, February 08, 2005