AFTER all the huffing and puffing, the Act banning hunting with dogs finally comes into force today.

It now falls to the police to enforce the legislation and nobody will envy them in that task. As pragmatic opponents of the Hunting Act pointed out during the legislation's tortuous passage through Parliament, and latterly the courts, it will be fearsomely difficult to implement.

The burden on the police will be to prove to the criminal standard (beyond reasonable doubt) that Suspect A owned the dogs and was hunting a mammal at the time he was seen and arrested. Given that the activity in question takes place in difficult terrain, at speed, by large numbers of people dressed in similar fashion, it doesn't take much to imagine the difficulty in assembling evidence that the Crown Prosecution Service will be prepared to take to court.

This presumes, of course, that senior police officers, under a great deal of pressure to deal with "normal" crime, will devote any resources to it. Our local forces, in not so many words, have made it clear they do not intend to do so. Indeed, in a county like North Yorkshire the obvious deployment of dozens of officers trying to police the ban is likely to lead to a public outcry. That's an issue that the chief constable Della Cannings could well do without as she endeavours to convince residents the extra resources she has gained in recent years are being used effectively.

So, on Saturday our hunts will be out, but the police will not be. The activity will be, for the most part, entirely legal. Some foxes may be killed, we suspect, if only "by accident". The law will be made to look an ass.