Taxpayers spend £500,000 on radios for badger cull marksmen

Police call for cull shooters to be given same hi-tech system they use - but activists buy counter-devices to disrupt shooting

Hundreds of thousands of taxpayers' pounds have been spent on equipping badger cull marksmen with radios that link them directly to police, the Guardian has learned.

Police have advised the government to invest in the same communications system they use to make it easier for officers to get to conflicts with cull saboteurs in remote areas where the mobile phone signal is poor.