 TV star and wildlife campaigner Chris Packham has revealed that hate campaigners have blown up a Land Rover outside his home. The arsonists, who remain unidentified, drove to the presenter's front gate before setting fire to the vehicle and leaving in a getaway car. The subsequent explosion set fire to the gate and fence of Packham's property in Hampshire's new forest. Luckily, no one was hurt. Packham explained what happened in a video he uploaded the morning after the incident. So on Thursday night, Friday morning, 12.30, two hooded and masked men drove a vehicle right up to my gate and set it on fire. They were fully aware of the CCTV that was in place. They took great pains to hide themselves. The car exploded and was rapidly and efficiently dealt with by Hampshire Fire and Rescue and the police were in attendance. And as ever, they did a fantastic job, but not before it had caused extensive damage to my property. It's not the first action that we've seen here. Dead animals are frequent occurrence. You will remember in 2019 that dead birds were tied to the gate, dead foxes and badgers and it's continued. Indeed, only the other day, I found a dead badger thrown in front of the house and it's got to the point that I didn't even bother to tell my partner Charlotte and stepped all to megan about it because it's become normal. But as someone has pointed out to me, this is far from normal. It isn't normal to come home and find dead animals thrown in front of your property, but that's what's been happening. But now it's escalated because they've taken to damaging that property. And I wonder where it's going. I mean, what happens next? Do they burn the house down? Do they beat up my stepdaughter? Do they cut the brake lines on my partner's car? Or do they come for me directly? I mean, are they going to kill me at some point? I will, of course, just carry on because I have no choice. I cannot and will not let your intimidation sway me from my course. And that's why I don't really understand why you would do it. That was Chris Packham explaining what sounds like a really horrific campaign of intimidation. So who's responsible for it? Well, no arrests have been made, but Packham is clear. He believes it to be the work of people opposed to his environmental campaigning. So he is quoted in the mirror as saying, I get up every morning and my underlying mission is to try and make the world a better place for wildlife and people. That's it. I think it's relatively straightforward. I do campaign against fox hunting because I don't think it's great for wildlife and it distresses 86% of the population. I do campaign against unsustainable and illegal shooting. I do campaign about these things and I draw attention to them, but I don't burn anything down. I don't damage people's property, all their livelihoods and I don't threaten them. All I do is ask them to change their mind. I want your take on this. I mean, this is, I mean, I was sort of shocked at how extreme this was. You know, this is people who are, well, obviously we don't know. It's unconfirmed who this is. But Chris Packham seems to believe and has very good reason to believe that this is people who are opposed to his environmental campaigning, including increasing regulation when it comes to shooting birds. For example, there's lots of farmers who've been, who've been pissed off by the campaign. But yeah, I mean, a land rover getting blown up outside his house. I mean, it's really just dreadful and horrifying. And I don't think that Chris Packham is being alarmist or fishing for sympathy when he's saying, well, how is this going to escalate? Is this going to end up with me dead or a member of my family killed or badly hurt? Like, where is this going to stop? And unfortunately, there has been a great deal of violence and conflict when it comes to the issue of environmental campaigning, particularly in the British countryside. You've seen that with, you know, assaults and abuse of hunt saboteurs. There's something really nasty about those who want to defend blood sport, you know, killing animals for fun because it's like a tradition or whatever in the countryside. So I think that, yeah, Chris Packham's got a real cause for concern. I hope that he's receiving as much protection as anyone can get in this kind of situation. And one thing which maybe I'd like to end my comments on is noting that despite this campaign of intimidation and harassment, which as he said has been going on for years, we don't really hear about it being worked into the conversation around free speech intimidation and harassment. So somebody like Chris Packham, who has genuine cause to fear for their safety, their car has just been blown up outside their home, doesn't seem to be the subject of like a big celebrity blue tick campaign of solidarity online. You know, I'm not seeing evidence being presented to parliament. I'm not seeing, you know, the times going out and, you know, loads of columns being written by, you know, Janice Turner or Matthew Dancona and all these kinds of people. It's just sort of seen as like a weird side issue, a weird fringe issue. But it seems to be a very direct example of somebody's free speech being attacked and an attempt to suppress it through a campaign of sustained intimidation and harassment. I do feel like, obviously, it's a hypothetical, but I do feel like if there was, you know, for example, one of these gender critical feminists who we hear so much from about council culture, if there was dead animals appearing on their front doorstep, which would obviously be a completely horrific horror. No one should get dead animals on their doorstep, by the way. But I imagine if that was happening, that would provoke far more times comment pieces and sort of big spreads in the Sunday Times than this happening to Chris Packham.