Jan McLachlan
- 2 hours ago
- 4 min read
Affiliations: Norwich Sabs
Location: Lingwood, Norfolk
A notorious member of the Norwich Hunt Sabs, Jan McLachlan, can often be spotted sabotaging local legal trail hunts across Norfolk. On 14 February, she was spotted in her Range Rover Defender, interfering with a lawful hare hunt. Not content with mere disruption, she branded the hunting community 'lazy and scrounging.' However, aimlessly insulting hunting folk on weekends is only part of the picture.
Jan McLachlan sabbing on 15 February 2026
In November 2023, McLachlan was caught damaging the roof of a building on First Avenue in Southampton. The stunt had been organised by Palestine Action, and the vandals were quickly arrested and appeared before Southampton Magistrates' Court on charges of causing criminal damage. McLachlan was released on conditional bail and ordered to reside at her home address in Lingwood and not to enter Hampshire apart from to attend court. If only the same justice could be applied to the chaos she inflicts on Norfolk hunts.
Palestine Action, the group behind the Southampton stunt, is no ordinary protest outfit. The government has moved to proscribe it as a terrorist organisation under anti-terror laws, following an attack in June 2025, on RAF Brize Norton in which activists broke into the military base and vandalised two planes. An act the armed forces minister described as 'a direct attack on our national security.' In August 2024, two police officers were attacked with a sledgehammer at a Palestine Action protest in Bristol, leaving one hospitalised, with weapons including axes and whips seized at the scene. Despite all of this, the Hunt Saboteur Association has come out in full support, proudly declaring 'We are all Palestine Action!' - a slogan McLachlan apparently took literally when she chose to climb a roof for them at dawn.
How could such disruptive behaviour be expected from a yoga studio director and former librarian at the Norwich University of the Arts? The very woman who once shushed every peep from behind the lending desk now screams, protests and shouts at people going about their lawful hobbies. The caricature of the librarian demanding silence has given way to something altogether louder, and considerably less legal.
Softly Softly Yoga is a small studio tucked away on Livingstone Street in Norwich, a community interest company dedicated, according to its director, to 'relaxing and calming the nervous system rather than pushing the body into certain shapes.' One might argue that scrambling onto a rooftop in Southampton at dawn is itself a shape the body needn't be forced into, but McLachlan apparently sees no contradiction.
Her classes, BTM is told, are 'completely breath-led,' designed to 'create a pause in your day.' Small wonder she needs one, given that her weekends are spent chasing after legal hunts and shoots across the Norfolk countryside. One imagines the breathing exercises come in handy during the getaway.
Hunt sabotage, however, is merely one string to Jan's activist bow. As Secretary of the Norfolk People's Assembly, she has rallied union members, championed strike action, organised protests outside high street shops, and administered the group's Facebook page with the same quiet diligence she presumably once applied to the returns trolley at NUA. Tax avoidance, welfare cuts, corporate greed, Palestine, rooftop vandalism, no cause is too remote, and no weekend too sacred. During one protest outside Vodafone, she noted approvingly that passers-by had remarked that ordinary people would be locked up for behaving as the company did. An ironic observation and, as it turned out, a prophetic one.
A former librarian and union rep at the Norwich University of the Arts, McLachlan describes herself as 'a passionate supporter of community-led action' who has been 'happy to contribute her time and energy both practically and creatively.' This turn of phrase that takes on a rather different complexion when the creativity involves a balaclava, and the practicality involves criminal damage. She speaks earnestly of 'networking to encourage take-up', a grandiose term for encouraging others into a life of criminal behaviour.
One pictures a woman who checks her calendar not for plans but for hooliganism, and who hasn't had a quiet Saturday since the Blair years. For a woman who teaches others to pause and breathe, McLachlan has never once stopped to think. She came down from Scotland to teach Norfolk how to relax. The hunts and the rooftops of Southampton would suggest the lessons haven't sunk in. For her, at least.
HATE SABS? SUPPORT BTM!
Over the past two years, BTM has unmasked nearly 100 hunt saboteurs.
We've exposed the links between hunt sabs, politicians, and the police.
We've helped bring criminal sabs to justice and shown the world how violent these countryside terrorists really are.
Now we need your help. With your support, we can keep the pressure on hunt sabs and let the whole world see behind the masks.
Please consider donating to our cause and share this link with anyone else who wants to keep the countryside free.
