The RSPCA have been in a fair pickle for a while now. It had been without a CEO for two years – after their last one, Gavin Grant, stepped down citing health reasons – until two weeks ago when they announced that Jeremy Cooper, (formerly chief executive of the charity’s ethical food label) would be taking on the role. This comes after reports at the end of last year that three candidates had pulled out, apparently due to concerns over finances, and the fact anyone in the job would be accountable to the charity’s council.
Two trustees have also stepped down since September over concerns about the governance of the charity. In a resignation letter, one wrote of worries about the selection process for the new CEO, who were being chosen from a ‘narrow pool of RSPCA members’; suggested that an independent body ‘should conduct a review of our governance’, and cited worries that poor management was detracting from the charity’s main purpose: animal welfare.
Anyone taking on the role of CEO would have a hard task ahead of themselves, after a series of negative news stories about failed prosecutions, bullying tactics, and headlines including one about the charity ‘killing 11 healthy horses’, as well as financial issues. The charity’s brand has even been described as ‘toxic’ – a very sad situation for the first animal welfare charity in the world, and one that, in many cases, still does a huge amount of good for suffering animals.
The latest RSPCA story won’t do the charity any good, either. The story of Claude the cat was one that caught the public’s attention last year. The elderly cat was seized by the RSPCA and euthanised the next day – against his owners’ wishes, and before their children were able to say goodbye. The RPSCA accepted that they acted wrongly, issuing an apology for the way they behaved in seizing and euthanising the cat, for deciding to prosecute the Byrnes family who owned him (a prosecution that the DPP decided to discontinue), and for the ‘resulting upset and deep distress caused to [Mr and Mrs Byrnes] and their children’. That should really have been the end of the whole saga – but it wasn’t.
A confidential review, seen by the Times, reveals that the vet the RSPCA officers took the cat to ‘was wrongly told that consent had been given for him to be taken’. It also reveals that the RSPCA wrongly told the media that ‘two vets including the family vet examined Claude and advised that the cat should be put to sleep’, and highlights other details that were untrue. Stephen Wooler – who previously conducted an independent review of the RSPCA’s prosecutions procedure – also investigated this specific case, writing that ‘respect for due process and the rights of individuals was largely absent’, and with regards with the Byrnes family’s dealings with the press, that:
‘There is a strong public interest in the public being aware of the manner in which the society’s inspectors treat citizens in the exercise of authority they do not have; and in the manner in which some police forces acquiesce in practices that seem to have no lawful basis.’
He also criticised the RSPCA’s inaccurate reports of the case, which led to the cat’s owners being sent abuse from members of the public:
‘It is no part of the role of a prosecuting authority to engage in a war of words through social media. Prosecutors should never speak or act in a way that is likely to call into question judicial determinations and the outcome of cases.’
The RSPCA have agreed not to pursue further hunting prosecutions, after the Wooler Report recommended doing so, and it is now being suggested that a single prosecutor could be set up for animal welfare cases, which would hopefully remove any pressure that the charity might feel to prosecute individuals privately. But given that the latest resignation of one of the charity’s trustees was in February, it sounds like infighting and conflict is still rife at the top. He has a tough job on his hands, but I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t hope that Mr Cooper can focus on animal welfare, and restore the charity to its former glory.
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