Ryedale hunting enthusiasts say they are prepared to break the law if blood sports are made illegal.

The Government has announced it is pressing ahead with legislation to outlaw foxhunting. Its Bill on the matter will get its first reading in Parliament tomorrow.

But Thornton-le-Dale-based Derwent Hunt secretary Sarah Morley said she feels that any ban would be unenforceable.

She said that she would be "quite prepared" to continue hunting in defiance of any ban.

She added: "I just can't see how hunting will ever stop. It would be so difficult to implement a ban, and all the proposals that have been made have contained so many inconsistencies there would doubtless be ways around it.

"There would be people willing to break the law - and I would be one of them."

Adam Waugh, Master of the Sinnington Hunt, also said he would be prepared to break the law to go hunting.

He said: "Each year they say it will be banned and each year we are still doing it. I, and others, would do it whether it was against the law or not.

"The Government's attempts to have hunting banned are 100 per cent misguided class prejudice and would essentially make criminals of people for the way they live and the way they have been brought up." Yorkshire-based Countryside Agency spokesman John Haigh would not be drawn on whether the organisation endorsed any defiance of the law.

He said: "The organisation will fight any ban within all legal means, including taking the case to the European Court of Human Rights."

He said that a protest march in London next March would go ahead as planned, and would be the "largest civil liberties demonstration the UK has ever seen".

A spokesperson for the League Against Cruel Sports said: "It is no surprise at all to us that people who abuse animals are prepared to break the law."

malton@ycp.co.uk