25 February 2024 , 14:51
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Former Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson has been reported to police for illegal activity on Diddly Squat Farm, but has denied claims he's done anything wrong.
The Clarkson's Farm host was visited by police after he was reported for filling in badger setts on his land, in Chadlington, Oxfordshire, but he said he had shot them legally and therefore had no need to. But now, reportedly five new videos were recorded showing badger sett entrances covered over with rocks, potentially to stop foxes from escaping down them.
Lynn Sawyer, an activist with the Three Counties Hunt Saboteurs, said he had previously allowed fox hunts to take place on his land, but there's no suggestion he did it himself.
Clarkson has denied illegal activity on Diddly Squat FarmSpeaking to the Telegraph, she explained: "He may not have known it had been done. We are not picking on Clarkson. Instead we are trying to protect badgers from being persecuted and killed. We do not discriminate."
Hunt groups sometimes deliberately block badger setts so that foxes can't escape down them, but it means badgers can be trapped underground.
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In his column in The Sun, the Grand Tour presenter denied claims he'd filled them in and was visitied by Thames Valley Police officers.
He said: "That is a serious criminal offence which can result in big fines and lengthy prison sentences. And if word leaked out that I’d been involved in such a thing, I’d be a social outcast."
Clarkson went on: "Mercifully, however, I had the perfect excuse: 'I've shot all the badgers on the farm so why would I want to fill in their setts?"
He added that it is legal to do so.
Clarkson's reps have been contacted for comment.
But it might not be something he has to worry about for long, after he admitted to the brutal reality of running a farm - which he named Diddy Squat after how much money it makes. He bought the Cotswolds property in 2019, and admitted in his first year he made just £114.
He claims that due to cuts in farming subsidies, farmers are "screwed", writing in his Times column: "They can't make anything approximating to a living wage without government help, and they can't put up prices because the supermarket system doesn't allow it."
Explaining in his book, Pigs Might Fly, he wrote: "It would be easy for me to let the brambles and badgers take over my farmland and to sit back and watch the deer and squirrels eat all the trees in my woods. Which is why this morning, I decided to plant my game covers with mustard. It’s my last roll of the dice."