IF your correspondent Mrs Sweet (letter, November 4) reads Simon Hart's article more carefully, she will see that he sets out just how hunts suffer from monitors.

If such monitors were ordinary members of the public, of course they would be very welcome to watch every hunt. Unfortunately, at a recent hunt in Surrey, some 25 "monitors" turned up at a children's meet, dressed in balaclavas and carrying iron bars, and proceeded to frighten not just the children but also the horses, causing absolute mayhem and several injuries.

Another more local instance is where one monitor was filming everyone with a video camera, right in their faces, including children under 16. This is illegal without parental consent and the monitor responsible was reported to the police, who took a very dim view of her actions.

As to "numbers falling so fast", in my experience, all hunts have larger fields now than ever before. When I started hunting some 30 years ago it was unusual to have more than one or two youngsters hunting; now it is the norm to have 20 or so under-16s – marvellous for the hunt and for the children, to say nothing of the future.

The Hunting Act was a waste of parliamentary time and the sooner it is repealed the better for everyone – and that includes the fox.

Michael Hickmott Exeter