
A disgraced primary school teacher filmed booting and beating a horse during a hunt has been sacked.
Sarah Moulds, who was condemned by the RSPCA for apparent animal brutality after shocking footage of her emerged, has now lost her job at Somerby School after she was suspended last month.
The disgraced rider and mother of two from Somerby, near Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, learned her fate following a six-week investigation by education chiefs.
Mowbray Education Trust Chief Operating Officer Paul Maddox said in a statement that he could confirm that Sarah Mould’s employment with the Trust had been terminated, and he said that as a Trust they’re committed to ensuring the best standard of education for all of their young people and they looked forward to continuing this throughout the 2021/22 academic year and beyond.
Sarah Mould’s was a senior leader and class three-team teacher at the local Somerby School and was also a director of the Knossington and Somerby Pre-School before her termination.
The 37-year-old was seen lashing out at the horse following a Cottesmore Hunt meet in the county earlier this year.
A clip captured by anti-hunt activists went viral, sparking anger nationally and globally.
The Pony Club, which claims to be the world’s biggest equestrian youth organisation with more than 30,000 UK members, also axed her as a team manager while condemning her actions as unacceptable.
In the aftermath of the video going viral, Sarah Mould’s received abuse and death threats and moved to a secret location away from her semi-detached £350,000 property for several days, and a neighbour told how she fled because she feared for her life, saying she had to go away after receiving death threats and loads of appalling abuse, and that it’s horrible and has got very much out of hand, and now she fears for her life.
The neighbour added that they didn’t know what occurred and in what context but what’s now happening to Sarah was awful, and she’s scared of being in her own home in case someone targets her or her children there.
The local rider added that she has young children and is worried about them as well as herself and that she’s well known and respected in equestrian circles and her social media was inundated with comments from extremely infuriated people after the video went viral and she’s now closed it down.
Of course, now we wonder if she should be allowed to continue in any job that involves children, although I’m sure she will win at her tribunal because whatever she does outside of school is nothing to do with them, although she obviously has anger problems, this was not just about having a bad day.
This was shocking behaviour and totally unacceptable. However, you can’t infer that she would hurt a child because she did this to an animal – there’s a massive difference between animals and humans, but even so, this is no way to reprimand a horse and there’s just no excuse for it.
It’s obvious that this lady was having a bad day, and if she did make a mistake and demonstrates remorse for it, then she could gradually start to build her life up again, and if she does acknowledge her mistake, then she deserves a second chance.
And it’s okay for people to go on fox hunts for pleasure, but when someone hits a horse it’s the biggest thing in the world, and as for those people who go on these fox hunts, does this mean they should be sacked from their jobs as well?