Bringing this back OT. I'm told that the video is horribly clear. The aircraft set off, from a standstill, towards him, and mowed him down head-on.
An alternative reading of your wording might be ...... the aircraft was taxiing and the huntsman, totally and irresponsibly oblivious to any danger, continued to advance towards it to have the aforementioned confrontation with the occupant. No sane person would venture anywhere near one when the engine is running, for obvious reasons. It is extremely foolish to do otherwise.
Long Marston airfield - ICAO code EGBL, and its in the vfr flight guides as a long establish airfield.
Subject to adhering to the operational legalities of the ANO, any aircraft can be used to monitor activities. The Antis may have had a good reason to check the activities of this particular hunt, acting on information they have received. Radar equipped Fishery protection and quota monitoring aircraft are low flying daily, gathering shipping information for possible infringements and prosecution. So why not a hunt surveillance fleet, paid for by the government, if police authorities claim their budgets will not allow them to do this work? Gathering evidence by use of any aerial or ground platform is perfectly legal. That the subject(s) being filmed won't like it, is another matter. The Courts and the Government ask for evidence of wrong-doing before they will act. How is one to obtain said evidence? Especially if the Police, as servants of the Law will not act?
There is an assumption being made here (and elsewhere) that the Gyro 'buzzed' the hunt. This conjures up scenes of James Bond and Little Nellie zipping through the hedgerows, guns a blazing, which some newspaper reporters would have the casual reader believe. Did it? I don't know. Was it following the hunt at a legal height? I don't know, I was not there. Were you? The pilot will be aware of the height rules and would be a fool to break them in this situation, where he knows witnesses are present. The Government have said they want evidence: this is one legitimate way to gather such evidence; the Police could have used their helicopter, but they appear to prefer to leave it to others to gather evidence for them - conveniently at other people's expense. Would the hunt complain about the police aerial surveillance of their activities? After all such aerial and ground monitoring of crowds takes place, for example, every weekend at top league football matches.
As to monitor events. The Police air support units and other agencies do this everyday of the week 24/7/365. Bringing it down to ground level, we are surrounded by CCTV cameras checking how many times we sneeze. No Nigelh, if the Police cannot or more likely, will not, monitor all activities to gather evidence, not just hunting related, then it is left to the individual or others to do the work the police are paid to do. Just like a friend of mine has installed CCTV overlooking the neighbourhood area he resides in which, for 10 years of police in-action, has been the scene of drug dealing. Despite residents informing the local police and passing on car registrations, nothing has been done (10 years). With the installation of private initiative CCTV, the dealers and customers (in their nice Bentleys, Range Rovers etc) moved elsewhere, when confronted and informed of the CCTV monitoring. Now it is someone else's problem in a different area. Meanwhile the Chief Constable had
other things on his mind.
Aerial monitoring has been around for decades. Local councils use this to check on illegal buildings in your back gardens which do not have planning consent. The tax man uses it to check on local farmers who are storing caravans over winter and not declaring their income for doing so - and I know of one girl who is employed full time by the Revenue just to read newspaper adverts and follow up as a pretend caravanner to see if the farmers are declaring their additional income. Aerial monitoring is and has been a fact of life since the Battlefields of WWI and earlier. Some here say it is a form of harassment. Then so is a gang of policemen manning revenue earning speed traps cameras - harassed motorists of course being easy pickings, unlike having to expend police funds to deal with drug dealers.
Talking of heated revenge, anyone recall the incident when the Merseyside Police helicopter was set on fire on the main terminal apron at Liverpool Airport, by the bad guys it had been monitoring? Similarly a parked helicopter, identical to the one in use by the Manchester police at the time, was peppered with gun shot whilst parked at Barton airfield - only it was not the police machine, but a night-stopping private owner, who happened to have a similar machine. It is not only 'height' that people cannot get right.
This video
may be of interest.