The pro-hunting campaigner Otis Ferry walked free from court today after claiming that he had only got involved in a skirmish with hunt monitors because of the recent theft of his puppy by animal rights activists.

Ferry, 26, the son of the Roxy Music singer Bryan Ferry, was given a one-year conditional discharge for causing “fear, stress and upset” to a woman who tried to film him riding with a hunt.

Ferry was released with a £350 fine and £100 costs by a judge at Gloucester Crown Court. He had already served four months on remand.

George Cox QC, defending, revealed that two weeks before the incident near Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire, Ferry’s Jack Russell, named Tiny, had been taken by anti-hunting protesters.

Mr Cox blamed the “distressing” theft of Tiny for the fact that Ferry had become involved in a “tug of war” for his victim’s car keys, leaving her bruised.

The incident, in November 2007, began after Ferry had ridden to the aid of fellow hunt supporter John Deutsch whose Subaru was being held up as he was trying to get help for a sick horse.

Ferry first came to public attention in 2004 when he was one of eight pro-hunting campaigners who staged a protest on the floor of the Commons during debate on the hunting ban. The following year he was bundled away by police after accosting the then Prime Minister Tony Blair at the National Portrait Gallery.

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