The former master of a hunt in the Borders has become the first person in Scotland to be sentenced for illegal fox hunting under new legislation.
Claire Bellamy, 51, who was a member of Lauderdale Hunt, led a pack of about 17 hounds in a wooded area between Houston in Renfrewshire and Kilmacolm in Inverclyde, in January 2025.
She had permission for the hunt from Nature Scot, but Paisley Sheriff Court heard she allowed the dogs to get the scent and then chase a fox through a field outwith the permitted areas of her licence.
She also failed to comply with the licence as the dogs were not kept sufficiently under control.
The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) said Bellamy was found guilty of an offence under the Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Act 2023, after a trial at Paisley Sheriff Court.
She was banned from owning or keeping dogs for 10 years, other than her pet terrier and Border Collies she uses in her work as a shepherdess.
Bellamy was also made the subject of a community payback order and ordered to carry out 300 hours of unpaid work over 12 months.
COPFS said the hunt gathered near Kirkton Farm before moving towards Kirkton Woods.
Video captured by anti-hunt campaigners, showed that Bellamy and the hunt had gone into undesignated areas.
Bellamy spoke to BBC Scotland News as master of hounds for Lauderdale Hunt when MSPs voted to change the law on hunting with dogs in 2023.
It led to the Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Act 2023 replacing the Protection of Wild Mammals Act, which had passed in 2002.
The original legislation allowed dogs to flush out foxes as long as they were then shot, and providing the hunt was to protect livestock, ground-nesting birds, or to prevent the spread of disease.
The new law requires hunters to obtain a licence to use two or more hounds to flush out wild mammals.
Bellamy said at the time that the two-hounds rule was "not viable" because foxes were forced out of hiding by the sound of packs of dogs running.
"That then pushes them out the cover to be able to be shot," she said. "Whereas two hounds, it's not going to happen."
Iain Batho who leads on wildlife crime for COPFS, said Nature Scot can grant licences which allow people to hunt foxes using two or more dogs.
"Such licenses can only be granted for limited, prescribed purposes," he added.
"The licenses granted will ordinarily have specific terms which are designed to ensure the hunt is limited to its prescribed purposes and to prevent foxes suffering unnecessarily.
"It is the duty of those who have been granted such licenses to strictly adhere to the terms of the licence.
"On this occasion Claire Bellamy failed to do so and has now faced the consequences of that."
He added: "The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service takes illegal fox hunting seriously and action will be taken by specialist prosecutors in the COPFS wildlife and environmental crime unit, where there is sufficient evidence and where it is in the public interest to do so."