A HIGH Court judge with a love of hunting has quit the judiciary in disgust, accusing the Government of acting like the Nazi party.

Michael Spencer QC angrily said the hunting ban was the first step along the same path that eventually led to Auschwitz.

And he said he was not prepared to use a criminal law to "persecute a law-abiding minority" and deprive people of their homes and livelihoods.

Mr Spencer is the chairman of the Ampleforth Beagles, a foot pack that hunts hares across North Yorkshire, and is also the head of the largest civil and common law chambers in London.

Although he intends to continue as a barrister, he has quit as a Recorder and deputy High Court judge - and believes others may follow.

Last night, his stance was welcomed by the pro-hunting Countryside Alliance, which praised the judge for sticking to his principles.

Mr Spencer, 57, lives in Buckinghamshire but has a cottage in Oswaldkirk, near Helmsley, North Yorkshire, and has been involved in hunting for more than 20 years. He has been a Recorder in the Crown Court for 22 years.

"I feel very strongly that criminal law should have nothing to do with hunting," he told The Northern Echo last night.

"This law is unjust. It is there for no reason other than Mr Blair's political problems and to please his back-benchers."

In his resignation letter to the Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, he wrote: "It is the duty of Parliament to defend the freedom of individuals to act in a way which causes no harm to person or damage to property, and whose actions have not been shown to cause unnecessary cruelty to animals or to harm the interests of society in any respect.

"This is so, no matter how much some - or even many - individuals may disapprove of such conduct."

He said the Hunting Act was the reverse of that and would lead to the persecution of law-abiding people as criminals simply because the Government wanted the continuing support of its backbenchers.

He said the move saw the Government following the same path as Hitler, who banned hunting in 1936.

"This parallels closely the conduct of government in Nazi Germany in the 1930s, and is a step, albeit in scale and significance a comparatively small one - as all first steps tend to be - along the same path that led ultimately to Auschwitz," he said.

"This path may be one which your Government and the House of Commons which it controls is prepared to take, but it cannot expect me to accompany it along the way.

"My continuing participation in the criminal justice system as a Recorder would amount to support for such a system.

"That is something which I cannot give, as a matter of principle."

Countryside Alliance spokesman James Bates said last night: "I personally feel the country and its judicial service is losing one of its most capable servants because of a law that is full of prejudice, ignorance and misguided class hatred.

"Rather than uphold what Mr Spencer QC - and millions like him across the country - obviously sees as an inept, incompetent and frankly just plain bad law, he has taken the decision to resign from the bench.

"Unlike ministers and backbench MPs, he did not want to compromise his professional principles."

l The Countryside Alliance asked the House of Lords yesterday to hear an appeal in their case aimed at overturning the law, which banned hunting with dogs.

The basis of the appeal is the claim that the use of the Parliament Act to force the hunting ban through the House of Lords is unconstitutional. A decision may not be announced for several months.

John Jackson, chairman of the Alliance, said: ''This application is a matter of major constitutional importance."