Members of the hunt said monitoring from the air had not been popular with their supporters and the judge said Mr Griffiths had taken certain precautions to protect himself and his newly bought gyrocopter.

The location of where he stored his gyrocopter was published on pro-hunt websites and Mr Griffiths improved security at his hangar and looked for an alternative storage site. Mr Griffiths’s home address was also published on a pro-hunt website, three weeks before the incident and he had installed CCTV at his own home.

Tensions got so bad that anti-hunt protesters said they would not monitor on the ground unless there was a police presence. On March 9 there was no police presence because officers were at a hunt in Oxford.

Warwickshire Hunt master Anthony Spencer said supporters, including Mr Morse, had planned to track down and take details of the gyrocopter pilot on March 9 – the last date of the hunt season.

They wanted to find out who was observing them because they felt like they were being intruded upon.

Details of Mr Griffiths’s address and the location of the gyrocopter were found in Mr Morse’s Land Rover after his death.

The court heard that Mr Morse was responsible for the hunt hounds, but was one of at least three people who monitored the monitors.

Judy Gilbert has been a volunteer hunt monitor for 12 years and had monitored with Mr Griffiths in the gyrocopter prior to March 9.

The 63-year-old grandmother from Buckinghamshire, said: “The Warwickshire Hunt has always treated us appallingly and we had warned police that the atmosphere was very unpleasant and was getting worse.

“The hunts have a rota of people who monitor us. In Warwickshire they would use Land Rovers with orange flashing lights on top. The idea was to block us in, but more importantly, it was to show other hunt members where the monitors were so they could avoid us.

“Before the hunting ban they mostly ignored us and our monitoring, but it changed after the change in the law. They became more menacing and more intimidating toward us.

“We have stayed away from the Warwickshire Hunt since this tragedy, but we will not be frightened away. I began monitoring because I felt so strongly about the persecution of wildlife.

“It could not get worse than the death of somebody, but I believe that this terrible incident occurred because people are still intent on chasing animals with a pack of hounds.”

Clare Rowson, regional director of the Countryside Alliance, said: “As a result of animal rights activists one man is dead and another faced these serious charges.

“If there is one outcome from this, it must be that the his death is not repeated.

“It is not for animal rights activists to police the Hunting Act, especially not using dangerous equipment like a gyrocopter.

“This was never about enforcing the act, this was about harassing people who hunt. We expected justice and I’m not entirely sure it was done.

“It is clear that the Hunting Act on no sides is working. The only thing that Trevor Morse set out to do was to find out the identity of the passenger and the pilot and to stop them taking off.”