A WHIPPER-IN could be sent to jail following an incident in which he repeatedly used his horse to barge a woman hunt monitor.

It was the second time Christopher Marles had assaulted a hunt monitor.

The first incident happened in October 2005 when he assaulted Kevin Hill at a meet of the Devon and Somerset Stag Hounds on Exmoor.

Marles was later sentenced to nine months imprisonment suspended for two years.

Magistrates at Exeter decided to refer the second assault to Crown Court for a Judge to decide whether the breach of sentence warranted a jail term.

Magistrates heard that Marles, 47, of Farringdon, near Exeter, repeatedly barged Helen Weeks with his horse when she was filming the activities of the East Devon hunt last March.

He knocked her to the ground three times.

At an earlier hearing Marles had pleaded guilty to the assault charge on the basis he had acted recklessly in riding his horse too close to the victim.

Although he apologised to Ms Weeks during the hearing the magistrates ruled the apology was no indication the attack was not intentional.