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Road Rage Ninja Woman 3: The Protagonists Unmasked

Mail on Sunday speaks to couple involved in countryside altercation captured on video

The protagonists of a video released by Gloucestershire police showing an altercation on a country road between a slow-moving cyclist and a black clad woman have come forward to give their own versions of events. The police video, plus the original version which suggested that conflict between hunt supporters and hunt monitors lay behind the incident, gave rise to much speculation in comments here on road.cc about the events.

Today, the Mail on Sunday has revealed that it has tracked down the man and woman involved in the incident which took place near Bibury in January, the former being 54-year-old Christopher Cox, joint master of the Oxfordshire’s Heythrop hunt, based in Prime Minister David Cameron’s constituency, with the latter identified as 23-year-old hunt saboteur, veterinary science student, part-time artist’s model and single mother Emily Marsh.

The Mail goes on to describe how the redheaded Miss Marsh – said to be a member of the Guildford Hunt Saboteurs’ ‘Whippet Squad’ goes by the name of the Foxy Lady or simply The Fox and isn’t averse to turning cartwheels while filming hunt activities.

Meanwhile, it also makes much of Mr Cox’s lineage, said to stretch back via the Irish aristocracy to William the Conqueror, as well as his family’s military background.

Those pen portraits sketch out two figures in what the newspaper describes as “a quietly simmering war being played out in the countryside because of the hunting ban,” introduced under the Hunting Act 2004 and which among other things makes the hunting of foxes with dogs illegal.

Hunt monitors seek to ensure that hunting takes place within the law, which for instance permits hunting an artificial trail including gathering video evidence, although confrontations between them and members of hunts are not uncommon, with each side accusing the other of violence at times.

The video posted to YouTube by police has been removed “due to a copyright infringement” made by user Zinfandelorganic, the poster of the original video, which remains on the site.

Speaking to the Mail on Sunday, Miss Marsh gave her version of the incident: “You have to understand that this was the culmination of months of abuse towards us,” she explained.

“They always try to hold us up and on this occasion there were about five cars behind our Land Rover. It was obvious what he was doing.

“Some of the other sabs asked why I didn’t pull him off his bike – I could easily have done. But I didn’t want to hurt the idiot.

“I was shouting at him to please move out of the way before I reached him. It was only when he went for my chest that I saw red and gave him a kick. But even then I only kicked his bike.

“He was just a foolish man brought up to think cruelty is okay.’

Miss Marsh said that she had contacted police following the incident “because the blow to my chest was painful and intrusive,” although she added that she took no further action because she had decided that “it wasn’t worth it.”

She continued: “I rang the police again last week after they put out their appeal. They said they had to investigate because of the video and would see me this week but haven’t.”

Mr Cox, a former army major who is now an insurance company director and lives in Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire, told the newspaper that the incident was “nasty.”

However, he dismissed suggestions that he had been riding his bike deliberately slowly in an attempt to hold up the hunt monitors, and said he was cycling because his horse was lame.

“There was plenty of opportunity to overtake,” he insisted, although the evidence presented in the original video suggests otherwise. “It could have been worse – there were ten of them,” added the former army officer.

He said that although he had not reported the incident to police when it happened, he did get in touch with them following last week’s appeal.

One hunt supporter who has encountered Miss Marsh while she has been carrying out her hunt monitoring activities said: “She is an incredibly fast runner, strong and fit, the Lara Croft of the antis,” adding, “Many of the hunt find her attractive and try to flirt with her, which she finds terribly annoying.”

Gloucestershire police told the Mail on Sunday that “the enquiry is ongoing” after a number of people contact them to pass on the identity of the people in the video.

According to the newspaper, the Heythrop hunt’s supporters include former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks and her husband, racehorse trainer Charlie Brooks, as well as Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson who has permitted the hunt to cross his land, all of whom live nearby.

It added that the RSPCA launched a private prosecution a fortnight ago against the Heythrop and four of its members in relation to what it the animal welfare charity alleges is illegal fox-hunting carried out by the hunt. The case is due to be heard at Banbury Magistrates’ Court in June 1, and according to the Mail on Sunday could be “politically sensitive” for Mr Cameron.
 

 

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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20 comments

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workhard | 11 years ago
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He wasn't a cyclist. He was a posh knob on a bike. Which he was using to deliberately obstruct traffic.

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Paulo | 11 years ago
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The most shocking part of the story for me is the missleading video that the police put up  13
It was edited to completely favour Mr Cox, people that watched the first (edited) & second video (unedited) will have probably taken opposing views of the same incident!!!

Yet nobody not even the article (which does mention the police were forced to take down the vid) has mentioned that the police have obviously chosen sides! & furthermore tried to distort public opinion through video editing!

Miss Marsh & Mr Cox have a right to there personal opinion whatever it may be. but the Police do not, aren't they supposed remain neutral???

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Lacticlegs | 11 years ago
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This has nothing at all to do with cyclists vs car drivers.

The idea that this girl is somehow at fault for wanting to knock the obstructive old git off his bike is nonsense. I ride a bike (commute/race/sportive) and my default position is always to be onside with the cycling community...BUT, if you doddle along in the centre of the road in an attempt to deliberately obstruct other road-users and refuse to move when asked then you are begging to get knocked off (or punched!).

Like most cyclists I also drive a car, and I've always believed that cycling produces better car drivers - to say nothing of better etiquette and more consideration. Since the 'war' has heated up however, I'm horrified to find that I keep seeing cyclists guilty of behaviour that completely yanks the rug out from under our stance of moral superiority (riding two abreast around box hill and refusing to move despite a queue of cars behind was the most recent example).

We have battles enough with road users and cyclists. This incident is between huntsmen and those who want the practice curtailed - the fact that he happened to be riding a bike is neither here nor there. Not our issue (and to agree with the above - a dull non-story that shouldn't be anyone's issue, least of all the police who have much better thuings to do).

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PATMAC | 11 years ago
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meh..like reds.. like to meet this foxy lady.. chapeau. red sonya!!!that hooray henry old or not was causing an obstruction to lawful traffic, the landrover should have shoved him sideways and reported it to police as a brush with a wandering drunk on a bike.. its likely that plod would have been as proactive as usual and done bugger all about the cyclist..

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ourmaninthenorth | 11 years ago
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Hah! The same Heythrop Hunt who, having unlawfully charged into my parents' field, did nothing to prevent their hounds chasing a 5 year old me (red hair, natch), only for me to be saved by my mother's swift actions.

The apology from the then master? A half eaten box of chocolates brought to the door. I think he left with all of them reasonably intact. And the chocolates.

A less charming bunch I've never met.

(Though the sabs were equally irritating. Didn't tend to threaten my life, though.)

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JohnS replied to ourmaninthenorth | 11 years ago
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ourmaninthenorth wrote:

(Though the sabs were equally irritating. Didn't tend to threaten my life, though.)

Well, you didn't have the temerity to ride a bike slowly in front of them, did you?

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Simon_MacMichael replied to ourmaninthenorth | 11 years ago
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ourmaninthenorth wrote:

Hah! The same Heythrop Hunt who, having unlawfully charged into my parents' field...

Can't be a million miles from me. I live a few minutes walk from where the Heythrop gathers each year for its Boxing Day Hunt and popped down out of curiosity last year to watch. Strange people.

I've got nothing against horse riding per se - I learnt to do so myself on holidays in the Pyrenees where my ex-girlfriend's parents (from Ireland and definitely not your typical 'horsey' people) had retired, taught by a guy of Cossack heritage whose grandparents had fled the Russian revolution.

He knew a thing or two about horses, and didn't need to go out hunting to prove it. Besides, if he wanted to hunt, he had a perfectly good rifle at home.

Trying to carry on with it back in the UK, the snobbery I encountered and attempts to 'correct' my 'unorthdox' (ie not English-style) manner of riding pretty much put me off it for life.

I know not all people who are into horses are like that (just as not all cyclists jump red lights or ride on pavements), but it's a shame the ones I came across were.

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JohnS | 11 years ago
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It seems there are a lot of people around here who think it is acceptable to attack slow cyclists if they're slowing down cars on a country lane.

Hope I don't meet them next time I go for a quiet ride in the countryside.

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Lacticlegs replied to JohnS | 11 years ago
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JohnS wrote:

It seems there are a lot of people around here who think it is acceptable to attack slow cyclists if they're slowing down cars on a country lane.

Hope I don't meet them next time I go for a quiet ride in the countryside.

Oh come on - if you were enjoying a quiet ride in the countryside and a queue of cars built up behind you then I'm guessing you'd move over to allow them to pass no? At least I hope so otherwise YOU are at fault and doing your bit to ratchet up the antipathy towards two-wheelers on the roads.

This isn't an attack on a slow-moving cyclist, it's part of a larger dispute between hunt-saboteurs/huntsman. He'd have been just as likely to incite this response if he'd been doing this on his horse rather than his bike...

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OldRidgeback | 11 years ago
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"The moral of this story
please meditate and pause
is never let a baby out
with loosely waisted drawers."

Spike Milligan

This lot all follow the Berkshire Hunt:

"former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks and her husband, racehorse trainer Charlie Brooks, as well as Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson"

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farrell | 11 years ago
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So the moral of the story is; "If you can pass as reasonably attractive, from behind, from a distance, on a grainy video and you can find a good enough back story on the victim and/or decent excuse, attacking cyclists is fully acceptable".

I also particularly enjoy the way she has tried to make out she was the innocent party and that it was caused by him grabbing her chest, as though he was some dirty old man who had gone out of his way to give her a bit of a fumbling. Stalin himself would have been proud of that bit of historical revisionism.

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OldRidgeback | 11 years ago
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"The unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable."

Oscar Wilde

That originally referred to the hunters and their prey. Some might say it also refers to the sabs and the hunters.

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alotronic | 11 years ago
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Fake fur arm warmers?!! Ironies compound...

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notfastenough replied to alotronic | 11 years ago
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alotronic wrote:

Fake fur arm warmers?!! Ironies compound...

I want some for the club run - do Rapha make them?!

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phax71 | 11 years ago
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She aint that fit at all, these horsey chaps will flirt with owt ...  1

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Cooks | 11 years ago
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//i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/05/19/article-2146937-131F4F41000005DC-157_306x560.jpg)

meh.

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TheHatter | 11 years ago
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Quote:

he dismissed suggestions that he had been riding his bike deliberately slowly in an attempt to hold up the hunt monitors, and said he was cycling because his horse was lame

...says everything about the mans honesty and integrity.

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Raleigh | 11 years ago
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In my opinion this is too much of a stupid story to pursue.

Leaveityeah

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nowasps | 11 years ago
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She should have chased him across the fields 'til he was exhausted, and torn his throat out with her bare teeth. He'd have appreciated the irony.

Amazing how you can find yourself jumping to prejudiced conclusions. Before I knew the full story, my sympathies were with the poor old man on his bike.

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koko56 replied to nowasps | 11 years ago
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nowasps wrote:

She should have chased him across the fields 'til he was exhausted, and torn his throat out with her bare teeth. He'd have appreciated the irony.

Amazing how you can find yourself jumping to prejudiced conclusions. Before I knew the full story, my sympathies were with the poor old man on his bike.

Nah, he was obviously ****ing about. No sympathy for him at all, hunting backstory or not.

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