DIFFICULT economic times and rising food prices may provide some explanation for an increase in poaching across rural areas of East Lancashire.

But it should go without saying that anyone buying meat without knowing how and where it has been killed, and the conditions in which it has been stored, is running a real health risk.

Then there is the awful cruelty that poachers are likely to inflict on the animals they are stealing.

But what has happened in Darwen is far worse than poaching where the aim is to get edible meat.

It is also in a quite different league to conventional hunting with dogs which is now banned by law.

Setting lurchers on a deer and watching the dogs savage the terrified animal is nothing short of barbarism.

It’s on a par with the sort of sick individuals who get warped pleasure from dragging badgers out of their setts and battering them to death.

Such antics are neither sport nor people looking for ‘something for the pot’.

This slaughter is pure sadism and the offenders must be caught and severely punished.