Village dog show no more after erupting into violence

A village dog show erupted into violence, with a teenager punched in the face. The event, held at Higham Memorial Hall field in Kent, was started five years ago by Rachel Hodges, 49, and her mum Val Pascoe, 73, from Shorne.



But the show on Monday, which attracted more than 2,000 people and 1,000 dogs, was dogged by antisocial behaviour including a 15-year-old allegedly being punched by a member of the public because he didn’t like his parking space. Mrs Hodges says she and her friend have had enough and have pulled the plug on next year’s competition.

Mrs Hodges, of Gravesend, said: “We’re not doing it next year. We’re just a family running it and it was meant for local people but it’s just grown and grown and we had people coming down from as far away as Peterborough and a lot from London. We’ve just got too big. My friend’s 15-year-old son was hit when he was trying to help someone find a parking space. He was very shocked and his mum took him home.



“My husband and niece were also verbally abused by people who were not winning in the show. They were like football hooligans. One of them turned up just to cause trouble. It was frightening. If we did it again we’d probably need a security team and so we decided to just stop. I can’t put my family and friends at risk. It’s just sad that people want to do this.”