The British public look set to ‘stick it’ to Prince Edward, Queen Elizabeth II’s youngest child, as he was caught on camera hitting his trusty black Labrador Retriever gundogs with a stick as he hunted in a field by himself on the Queen’s Sandringham Estate. Not content with killing birds, the seventh in line to the throne of the Royal British family, went on to beat his canine companions.

Edward’s two dogs performed the task for which they are trained, to retrieve the pheasants the 44 year old Prince appears to believe it is fine to shoot. But when two of the dogs decided to squabble over just who had the rights to the dead bird, the Prince intervened with a large stick, showing his temper and cruel nature by lashing out at the dogs, demonstrating that he should have the rights to the dead quarry.

Barry Hugill, from the League Against Cruel Sports, said: ‘I would not be at all surprised about Prince Edward mistreating a dog. This is a young man who has been brought up to regard it as his right to slaughter and mistreat animals for pleasure.’

Edward outraged animal rights campaigners in December 2005 when he battered to death an injured pigeon which had been shot during a pheasant shoot, once again, at Sandringham.

Mr Tyler added: ‘It’s about time the Royals got the message that most people regard the shooting of birds for sport as repellent.’

In an era when the Royal family are struggling to maintain any sort of popularity, Prince Edward may just have tapped another nail into the coffin of their demise.