I am ready to go to prison for hamster murder

Colin Foster

Emma Nutbrown

What a sweet name for someone working for the RSPCA

Tom Callaghan

I rather think the letter is a hoax: surely Ms Nutbrown is a relative of Squirrel Nutkin?

Dwight Vandryver

The last paragraph says it all. 11 years of New Labour's "command and control" have made the country an unpleasant place to be. Labour knows that apart from a few squeals of anguish from the press and blog sites, each new restriction of liberty will eventually be accepted by the public as there can be no collective action to prevent it from a disjointed society. The Tories would have a problem if they put civil liberties high on their agenda. Questions would be asked: well, which particular liberty would they like to reinstate? To drive without fear of speed cameras? A return to hunting foxes with dogs? Smoking in pubs and clubs? Allowing people to live their lives as they see fit? The creeping intrusion of the state into everyday affairs has gone too far - it is a fait accompli that cannot be undone. Labour has set the trend and all parties now to want to impose their own brand of conformity upon us. Britain is not a happy island, and is destined to become more miserable.

anna

Too cheap to take it to a vet to be humanely put down, were you? Prefer it to starve or freeze or be eaten by a bigger predator in the wild. Good example for your kids!

Joe Camel

I once accompanied a young relative, then aged about nine, when he released his entire collection of spiders and scorpions into the park, actually only about three or four of each. (This was not in the UK but in a much warmer climate, and the place was their native habitat.) I’m still satisfied it was a humane thing to do, whatever the Nutbrowns may say.

Andy

Presumably, anna, you disapprove of those Animal Rights activists who released mink from fur farms then? Personally, I'd like to see Dave pledge to undo ALL Labour's legislation since 1997, although I'd particularly like not to be technically engaged in a criminal act when I walk my dogs in the fields and they start hunting, as dogs do naturally, thanks to Labour's obsession with class warfare.

James R

Of course the harsh economic times are not going to lead people to start minding their own business. Think about it. You are the Assistant Manager, Compliance (Hampster, Rabbit & Squirrel Division) and business is slow. You haven't made a collar since the post-Easter bloodbath, and then Dellingpole comes along and fesses up to practically offing the varmint in broad daylight. James can count himself lucky the SWAT team wasn't deployed.

Ross Burns

Is James Delingpole for real? If he cannot look after a hamster, as he admits, then why go out and buy one along with the school one? If he just bought the one for the school then he wouldn't have the problem. I don't think it is anything to do with the RSPCA having nothing better to do, as i think a defender says but more like The Pole had nothing to write about and became desperate. The RSPCA does a good job. After all, it's not them who are kicking dogs ribcages to bits; pouring bleach down a dog's throat; stamping on cats etc, etc. It's better for some that they have the RSPCA dealing with them, because if it was me, the scum who do such things would have a 12 stone me jumping up and down on their head, if i came across it. A human eye pops out quite easily, and squashes just like jelly under a size ten.

Radge

Never on any account ('scuse the pun) donate money to the RSPCA. They are a rabidly political organisation these days.

Looks like you have brought out the animal liberation nutters like Ross Burns, deliberately mixing wanton cruelty and trivial neglect.

James

Releasing domestic pets into the wild to fend for themselves is cruel and unfair. It has nothing to do with politics.You can defend it as you like but you behaved shabbily and shouldn't have done it. The RSPCA was only doing its duty in writing to you.

Tony Pandy

James, no surprise here. The RSPCA is a very sinister organisation. What other country would allow its animal welfare charity workers to wear paramilitary uniforms to enter your home, even in the homeowner's absence, to confiscate private property without any form of legal process? There's a reality TV show about the RSPCA on at the moment - it shows RSPCA inspectors feel they have the right to humiliate people with self-righteous little lectures for the camera's benefit. Loathsome.

Jasper Reed-Spencer

Someday in the future, would you be content for your adult child to dump an unwanted dog in a public park somewhere? Hopefully not, but he/she might turn to you and say, "Piss off, that's what you did wiv that 'amster, why shouldn't I?" - point is, teaching any kid that it's okay to dump an unwanted pet is probably sending the wrong message and the consequences will be discovered later. Domestic animals generally starve to death in the wild, anyway, so you also created some suffering at the same time. Well done.

cuffleyburgers

Several things strike me about this letter, the most offensive of which is the use of the first name in an official letter.

Appalling.

You were probably wrong to release your hamster, but as an aggressive little bugger it probably had a whale of a time until provoking one domestic cat too many.

The RSPCA should stick to dealing harshly with the genuine cases of extreme cruelty which undoubtedly do occur and which Mr Burns describes with the passion of a true afficionado of dog torture porn.

Ross Burns

Cuffley burgers? - what I described is not dog tortue porn. Those two appalling cases actually happened - and similar hatred will happen again; fortunately, those dogs were rescued and now live away from any harm. You will be happy about that? I don't know why you want to say such a thing of me, perhaps you don't know people really do such things. Porn is fabrication; what I wrote is true. I think you should lose your affected, headmasterly tone and think seriously about such things.

Lottie

James Delingpole, this is the first time I have even heard of you. Sufficed to say, you have not impressed me one bit.

First you allow children access to a living, breathing pet without supervision and the poor thing gets killed, then you release it's replacement (which only needed time and patience) into the wild, therefore causing an offence and publicise it.

The RSPCA received a complaint about it, they HAD to write to you. You're so very lucky to have got away with it because you have admitted your crime already - they could've thrown the book at you, and following this - personally, I think they made the wrong choice.

Nobody would ever dream of releasing a dog 'into the wild' and publicising it so widely so why a hamster?

You're an idiot. Plain and simple.

Roy Mumaw

I am unfamiliar with Brit law, but is publishing an article in a newspaper the same as confessing to a crime under oath and prosecutable as such?

I am used to a "justice system" that includes things like "evidence."

syncope

As an American I feel I must weigh in as the moral authority here: I would not have released the hamster, for thinking about it starving and suffering (even if it didn't) would've been upsetting. That said, I would've smashed him to end his pain as quickly as possible.

As for the RSPCA, their letter could've been a simple "We disagree, here's why" and it could've provoked dialogue. Instead they went for the demeaning school marm tone and instantly lost all credibility.