Rspca

Yesterday, the RSPCA published the long-awaited review of its prosecutions policy. Interesting choice of timing – it finally released the critical report on the day of Cameron’s conference speech. Talk about burying bad news. The review recommends that the RSPCA no longer prosecutes hunts because it also campaigns on hunting, and calls into serious question the direction it has been taking. Personally, I think the charity needs a serious re-think after some shocking miscarriages of justice where it has pursued pet owners for very minor infringements, and been totally unaccountable and closed to any kind of public scrutiny. We now need a proper debate and I urge anyone interested in

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_25_Sept_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Melissa Kite, Camilla Swift (and Charlie the dog) discuss animal welfare” startat=630] Listen [/audioplayer]We love animals more than we love people. Of course we do. Following the recent fire at a Manchester dogs’ home, people donated £1 million and blocked the M6 with their cars as they arrived in their multitudes to adopt the displaced animals. It would have been heartwarming, it really would, if we hadn’t also demanded the death of the teenaged boy named on Twitter as the suspect in the arson attack. All over the internet apparently normal people, including ‘friends’ of mine on Facebook, called for a 15-year-old boy to be burned alive. I

On Saturday, the Daily Mirror published a front-page photograph of the racehorse Wigmore Hall with a gun to his head, about to be put down, having broken its leg. Unsurprisingly, the paper’s decision was met with dismay and anger from the racing community. But perhaps more surprising is that the RSPCA appears to be on racing’s side. In February last year, Melissa Kite wrote in this magazine that she feared that the RSPCA might have set their sights on horse racing. But it seems promising – and strangely sensible – of the RSPCA to have spoken out against both the Mirror and the pressure group Animal Aid, which supplied the

After a rush of blood to the head, I decided it might be a good idea to ask some awkward questions of the RSPCA. Oh no, I hear you cry. What fresh hell is this? Let me explain. I found out that the charity is pretty much closed to any kind of scrutiny. Unlike other powerful organisations, the police or government bodies, the RSPCA is immune to Freedom of Information requests. This would be fine if it were just handing out free veterinary care, but, as we know, it isn’t. The charity can investigate and prosecute a little old lady for failing to spot that her cat has a tumour,

Fly-grazing will be discussed for two hours in Parliament this afternoon. But what is it – and why should the government care? Put simply, fly-grazing is the unauthorised grazing of land by equines. Or, as Defra puts it, ‘the practice of leaving horses to graze on public or private land without the permission of the owner or occupier.’ Essentially, it’s the equine version of being a squatter. This afternoon the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee will take evidence on the topic, after Julian Sturdy MP put forward a Control of Horses Bill that will have its second reading in October. But are irresponsible horse owners something that the government really ought to be

‘Hi I did Put it on It needed more’ is the pleasingly obscure haiku I find on my kitchen table. It is from Denise, one of the most wonderful people I know. To give Denise a title — such as cleaner, cleaning lady, home help — would be disingenuous or even downright rude. Because it is fair to say that, in the years I have been privileged to know her, I have not only had my flat cleaned by Denise, I have had my mind broadened, my spirit fortified and my soul set on a path to a place where she assures me I shall surely find peace when the

Strangely enough, I was in the middle of writing an article about the tactics used by the RSPCA when another animal charity knocked on my door. A young man holding a clipboard was standing on the doorstep, grinning enthusiastically: ‘Hello! I’m from Battersea Dogs Home.’ ‘Hello,’ I said, ‘I’m a bit busy.’ Exposing animal welfare charities for preying on innocent people. I didn’t say that last bit out loud. ‘I just need to tell you,’ he said, ‘that we’ve got a big fundraising drive because a lot of dogs are being abandoned at the moment. And…’, he paused for dramatic effect, ‘…a lot of them have been tortured.’ ‘Tortured?’ I

listen to ‘John Humphrys and the #RSPCA case of Claude the cat ’ on Audioboo

If you were concerned about animal welfare, would you choose to spend money on prosecuting farmers whose welfare is below par? Or would you spend that money on improving animal welfare through regular unannounced farm inspections, and the labeling of meat that has met strict welfare standards? There seems to be a split in the RSPCA, and it’s this farming issue that’s causing all the trouble. At their latest annual meeting the charity’s members voted to support a motion which would see them increase their prosecutions of farmers and slaughterhouse workers, and abandon their current Freedom Food accreditation scheme, according to minutes leaked to The Times. And it wasn’t just

To cull or not to cull: that is – once again – the question. This time it’s not badgers, deer, or even goats that are being discussed, but wild boar. Locals in the Forest of Dean have complained that these giant pigs are attacking their dogs, spooking the horses, causing car accidents, and tearing up gardens and football pitches. The Forestry Commission have estimated that the numbers of boar are doubling almost every year, and they believe there are currently about 800 living in the 43 square miles of woodland. If the Forestry Commission get their way, half of these would be culled. But is that really such a big

Gavin Grant, the CEO of the RSPCA, is stepping down from his role after just over two years in the job because there are ‘concerns about his health’, the charity announced today. The announcement will be met with a mixture of delight and dismay; delight from those who believed that his influence was shifting the RSPCA’s purpose from animal welfare to animal rights and, of course, dismay from his loyal supporters in the animal rights brigade. It’s hard to reject the view that he was a driving force behind the many incendiary headlines written about the RSPCA since he started his job. While Grant was in charge, the increase in

The Daily Telegraph’s excellent interview with the head of the Countryside Alliance today tells us what many people in the countryside have known for a long time: that the RSPCA has become a malign organisation. I wrote my own expose of the ‘charity’ in February this year in which I compared it to J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI. More and more people are realising that the RSPCA is a powerful group of snoopers who seem to exist for nothing so much as to further their own power. The RSPCA is really now so political it should not be able to call itself a charity and it should not carry the Royal prefix

A real-life Wind in the Willows war has broken out. Except this time, the war isn’t between the Weasels and Badger (he’s busy fighting another battle), and the story has relocated from a Berkshire riverbank to the Scottish Highlands. This battle is between the pine marten – a weasel-type animal – and the capercaillie, a turkey-sized bird in the grouse family. So what, exactly, is the problem? 

Well, for starters, both species are protected and endangered in the UK, but pine martens are currently doing pretty well in terms of numbers. They might have been almost extinct at the beginning of the 20th century, but have now made a comeback – which

In January of this year, Melissa Kite wrote our cover story about how the RSPCA has morphed from being an animal welfare charity into an animal rights group.  She wrote of the ‘culture of fear at their headquarters’, and explained ‘how deeply suspicious some animal experts have become of this once-respected body’. Since then, the problems have only worsened. In July it was revealed that the charity’s Chief Executive, Gavin Grant, was paid ‘between £150,000 and £160,000’ a year – at least £30,000 more than his predecessor.  Last week it was found that the charity has access to the Police National Computer, allowing it to investigate any suspect, witness or defendant’s criminal record. One RSPCA whistleblower –

Brian May dressed in a badger suit, singing a specially-composed ‘badger song’? That’s what we were promised on Wednesday morning, but alas, the stunt never pulled through. We did, however, see a flashmob of fifty ‘dancing badgers’ outside Defra HQ, protesting about this summer’s planned badger cull. So what, exactly, were they protesting about? Bovine Tuberculosis (bTB) is currently the greatest threat to British cattle farmers, as the number of affected cattle has risen drastically in the UK over the last 25 years. According to Defra: ‘The number of new cases has doubled every nine years. Last year TB led to the slaughter of 26,000 cattle in England at a cost

This year’s Grand National meeting attracted an exceptional amount of press attention, much of it due to a number of changes which were introduced in a bid to make the race safer. As a reaction to calls from animal welfare charities such as the RSPCA and Animal Aid – the latter of whom run a ‘racehorse death-watch’ website – Aintree organisers changed the cores of the fences from wood to flexible plastic, levelled out a number of the landings on jumps, and moved the start of the race away from the crowds. So did the changes make a difference to the race? Saturday’s Grand National race was for many an

Is the RSPCA morphing from animal welfare charity into an animal rights group? In this week’s Spectator, Melissa Kite writes that following the charity’s successful prosecution of the Heythrop hunt, its chief executive Gavin Grant now has his sights set on the racing industry: Buoyed by the success of his prosecution of the Heythrop hunt, I am reliably informed, he has set his sights on the racing industry next. ‘His modus operandi for these big campaigns is to target high-profile events and people,’ a well-placed veterinary expert told me. ‘So you won’t see him having a go at Badminton, where horses also get injured, because it’s not a household event.

Parliament debating how laws are prosecuted is not a rare event, unless that is, MPs are pondering the role of the country’s most persistent private prosecutor. Alongside its role as a prosecutor, the RSPCA also campaigns for new legislation and changes to the existing laws it is prosecuting under what seems like an increasingly radical agenda. That is why I have sponsored a debate today about their role as a prosecutor to which the Attorney General will respond. This debate is not about the 95 per cent of the RSPCA’s work directly protecting animals which we all support and applaud, indeed I was a member of the RSPCA for many

In this week’s Spectator, Melissa Kite spends the day with the Heythrop Hunt – David Cameron’s local hunt, and a hunt that has recently been fined £4,000 for hunting outside of the law. Much has already been written about the ‘staggering’ amount of money which the RSPCA chose to spend on the case, and the lengths to which the RSPCA have gone to mount the prosecution. The two huntsmen charged pleaded guilty to four charges of breaching the Hunting Act and, as Melissa writes: ‘The RSPCA initially laid summonses for 52 separate allegations and the trial had been set to take 30 days of court time spread over three months. Defence costs