The BBC’s ‘Springwatch’ presenter Chris Packham has been arrested and charged with assault in Malta after an alleged physical altercation with bird hunters on the island.

The wildlife expert has kicked up a huge fuss over his arrest, taking to Twitter to protest his innocence and claiming that he was merely trying to point out to police that the hunters had trapped and encaged a number of rare and protected birds.

Authorities on the Mediterranean island have charged 55 year old Packham with “using force against any person with intention to insult or hurt them”, but claims that the police should have been focussing on the hunters and not him.

Chris Packham'Springwatch' presenter Chris Packham pictured in 2014

“Malta! You point out suspected criminals to the police… and you end up in court”, he vented on Twitter shortly after his arrest earlier this week.

“I have just spent the last two hours in this police station after we were instructed to come back here by the police,” Packham explained in a video posted on Tuesday (April 18th). “This is because two trappers who were present at the time claimed that I had assaulted them. I am completely innocent of these charges.”

“Not only was I a victim of being pushed around but I was then pushed all the way up the street by a policeman,” he continued.

Packham, a former presenter of children’s favourite ‘The Really Wild Show’ from 1986 to 1995, is on Malta on film a documentary about the ecological impact of hunting, and has lobbied the British government on the issue for several years.

Three years ago, he had a similar scrape with authorities on the island when he got into a row with hunters and was detained by the police.

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