Essex farmer Matthew Register has called the police about hare coursing on 198 occasions since July [Jamie Niblock/BBC] A farmer has told the BBC that hare coursers have chased him with machetes, locked him in barns and caused £30,000 in damage to his property since July. Matthew Register said he had reported 198 incidents to Essex Police and described his land in Linsell, near Braintree, as being unsafe to work on alone.