RSPCA left with £10K bill after ‘surprising’ case against OAP
Posted: September 07, 2013
|Judge Jeremy Griggs said the charity had broken an undertaking it gave to Parliament not to use stronger powers under new legislation against pet owners without giving them a chance to have their animals treated.
He refused to make an order for costs estimated at £9,945 despite throwing out the appeal of cat owner Dilys Hadley.
He ruled she had broken section nine of the 2006 Animal Welfare Act which created a new offence of failing to take reasonable steps to provide for an animal’s needs.
The new offence is much broader than the old legislation, in which owners could only be prosecuted if they caused unnecessary suffering.
It was passed by Parliament after the RSPCA gave assurances to a committee they would not use it unless a pet owner ignored a warning notice, but Miss Hadley was taken to court in apparent breach of this safeguard.
Retired teacher Miss Hadley, 62, of Whitman Close, Exmouth, lost her appeal against a conviction by Exeter magistrates for failing to take her 16-year-old cat Janet to a vet because it had a bulging eye.
The Judge imposed a conditional discharge and made no new order for costs. No restriction was imposed on Miss Hadley keeping animals in the future.
The prosecution alleged Miss Hadley failed to seek treatment for Janet in August 2011 when a tumour under her eye caused it to bulge out of its socket.
She said the animal was in no pain or discomfort and she was planning to take it to the vet on Monday after the Saturday on which it was seized by a trainee RSPCA inspector.
The cat was found to have an inoperable tumour under her eye and was put down.
Judge Griggs, sitting with two lay magistrates, ruled that it should have been obvious to the owner for weeks, if not months, that something was wrong with Janet’s face and the cat should have been taken to the vet.
He said Miss Hadley herself had told a neighbour the eye looked ghastly and was described as gruesome by the RSPCA inspector.
He said: ”In our judgment she should have taken the cat to the vet well before the RSPCA became involved. We are satisfied the cat would have responded to treatment or management of the condition.
“We have very considerable sympathy with Miss Hadley, who is a woman of previous good character and who has an unblemished record over many years for caring for this cat and other pets.
“We are concerned in this case that the RSPCA have prosecuted in what appears to be in direct contradiction to the safeguards they made to the parliamentary committee when the statute was considered that they would not prosecute for a welfare offence without due warning.
“We do not propose to make any further order for costs. We have already passed comment about the position of the RSPCA in pursuing this matter.
“It would appear to be directly contrary to the clear undertakings given to the DEFRA committee that cases would only be prosecuted after persons had been advised and subsequently failed to meet an animal’s needs.
“It seems to us with the particular facts of this case, and an owner who is a lady of good character who clearly looked after her pets well, the RSPCA’s actions were surprising.
“This cat was not in pain or distress. She may have been suffering discomfort and she should have been taken to the vet at an early stage, but the owner clearly had financial problems. In all the circumstances we do not award costs.
“It is not appropriate Miss Hadley should contribute to the very substantial costs the charity have been put to.”
The Judge pointed out that in this case the vet who first saw the cat did not think there was any case for a prosecution for causing unnecessary suffering, but the RSPCA had still sent the body for post mortem examination to seek evidence.
The court was told Miss Hadley, who still has another cat called Swiggy, has a very small income with a teaching pension of just £160 a month.
-
What a criminal waste of money by this so-called charity, but unsurprising in the context that they have a long track record for bringing expensive and dubious prosecutions. They have to destroy many perfectly healthy animals which they “rescue” because they don’t have the funds to keep them. They would rather pay the money to lawyers. The judge was very polite when he called their actions surprising. I would be more blunt and call them idiotic. Anyway, I stopped giving any money to them after I found out their chief executive was paying himself £600,000 a year. Shambolic.
I find it totally shocking that the RSPCA could and would act in suck an (for want of a better word) evil manner! This is a case of a 62 year old woman and her 16 year old cat, for them to ignore the relationship that the cat and owner must have had, to fail to consider the owners financial situation alone would have been inhumane and disturbing, but to do this while totally disregarding their promise to parliament!! What on earth could have been behind the RSPCA’s aggressive hounding of this poor woman here, I mean to ignore the advice of the vet and perform a post Morten exam on this woman companion of 16 years! in order to drag the suffering of lose and guilt out further!!! Shocking and absolutely revolting!!! It seems that the RSPCA have gone off track these days, no longer caring about preventing cruelty, in fact it seems that they now go out of their way to inflict as much of it as possible. Did they (as they promised) alert the owner to the need for action before they took the cat to be put down and then cut open! no they didn’t. surely the RSPCA should have tried to help both owner and pet rather than act as judge jury and executioner! Tony above said that he would have been blunt and called the action of the RSPCA idiotic, I will go further and say that their action was nothing more than driven by greed! yes greed they used this action to make money for what is now a clearly nothing more than a corrupt charity. I say remove the R from Rspca, there is nothing Regal about such vulgar methodology.