Investigations

              £54,000 paid out of public funds,

          to the RSPCA, for just one of their cases in 2008.



Also in 2016 a review of the Animal Welfare Act 2006 was started by the Environment Food and Rural Affairs Committee into the effectiveness, its enforcement with regards to domestic animals and whether it remains “fit for purpose”. During this review the committee consulted with the RSPCA, to take oral evidence. Giving evidence was Haylay Firman, who had only very recently been appointed as head of prosecutions, to fulfil one of the recommendations by Stephen Wooler from almost 2 years earlier! just in time for this review, another ploy to hoodwink the government. However Hayley Firman did not succeed in convincing the committee that her use of the word "interfered" was a slip, when she said "Specifically in the last five years, we have had three cases that have been referred and interfered with by the CPS". 

She also stated surrounding the suggestion that the RSPCA should pass prosecutions to the CPS: "what would happen is that the RSPCA would investigate the case, incur the welfare costs, have to make a decision, institute proceedings and probably incur legal costs. We would then have to forward it to the police, who would then forward it to the CPS, and there would be no guarantee that it would take the case on if the tests had not been met. The likelihood is that it would have to be sent back to us in order for us to continue to prosecute it". That implies that the RSPCA would continue to prosecute, even though the cps had refused to because the tests had not been met, yet the RSPCA claim to work to those exact same tests as the cps, now there is a contradiction if ever we saw one.

There was also lip service paid by the RSPCA, to the discussion of an oversight panel and the RSPCA's complaints procedure, these were two of the 33 recommendations made by Stephen Wooler in his review, all this almost two years after the recommendations had been made and still little progress had been made as to those recommendations.

The end of 2016 saw the RSPCA fined £25,000 for wealth screening. £25,000 of donations, money donated to help animals.

The government have not wholly been taken in by the RSPCA it would seem, as Ministers put the RSPCA on probation for two years in early 2017, to "give them time to implement the recommendations", but seriously, when are the government going to grow some teeth and deal with this charity in a way they deserve. To date there is still no news as to the outcome of this probation period!.

June 2017 and RSPCA were trying to defend allegations that they spent more than one million pounds on a property to look after three cats. It was claimed , Katie Toms, whose mother Daphne Harris chaired the RSPCA national council, lives in the four-bedroom house in Headcorn, Kent, rent-free.. The full story can be read here:

https://www.metro.news/rspca-defends-spending-1million-on-property-that-looks-after-cats/638458/

2018 and the RSPCA were in the headlines again, this time for awarding a former chief executive a six-figure pay-off. Acting head Michael Ward was paid a sum more than his £150,000 salary when he left. Mr Ward, 57, received the pay-off after he said he did not get the permanent post because of his age. An official warning, which did not name Mr Ward or include details of his pay-off, said the failings amounted to "mismanagement in the administration of the charity". Mismanagement of funds donated by the public to be used to help animals, or so they believed!

2020 does not seem to be a good year for the RSPCA, involved in disputes, not only with it's own staff but with Unite the union also. Tulip Siddiq, the Labour MP for Hampstead and Kilburn was deeply concerned about the dispute, saying the charity has been 'making efforts to to effectively derecognise' the union Unite; the RSPCA rejected the claims. The MP wrote to Chris Sherwood, CEO of the RSPCA expressing her concerns, saying "I am concerned that if the RSPCA insists on dismissing hard-working staff who do not want to sign the new contracts there will be repercussions on animal welfare, as well damage to the good reputation of the society".

Had Tulip actually done any meaningful research into the RSPCA F.A.I.R. believe she would have found that the 'good reputation' is already damaged, hence the fall in donations and the publics faith in the RSPCA on matters of animal welfare are also somewhat in tatters.

February 2020 and the RSPCA were in the news again, this time for prosecuting a farmer for causing unnecessary suffering to an already dead sheep, Judge Peter Veits said that the case raised concerns over the charity’s role as a prosecutor. He said that it had “become involved in matters that could have been left to the appropriate bodies”.

Not only do the RSPCA bring private prosecutions they also campaign for laws to be changed, usually to their advantage as these are the laws they will use to prosecute people, the Government take advise from the RSPCA on these matters, so basically asking them what exactly they want! They investigate and also prosecute by way of private prosecution. Yet they maintain there is no conflict of interest as all matters are separate. we, like others, simply do not believe or accept this. The publicity the RSPCA gets after every successful prosecution is free publicity and by far the best publicity tool they have.

In fact we believe the private prosecutions brought by the RSPCA are no better than cases which were brought by Common informers, which was essentially repealed in 1951. Especially when one considers the prosecutor, who is not the victim when the RSPCA bring a private prosecution, exactly as the common informer was not a victim, is then awarded eye watering amounts of money for looking after the animals, which the defendant is being prosecuted for, often kept in a no better fashion than the accused himself allegedly kept them, if one believes the prosecutors accusations, then also awarded the said animals to do with as they wish, add to that the free publicity, the benefit to the charity certainly seems to be on a parallel with the common informer who sir lord coke called “Viperous Vermin”.

Meanwhile why all this is going on and the government and its departments fail to bring any kind of action against the RSPCA, they (the rspca) continue to do as they please, destroying peoples lives, destroying animals in their thousands and breaking the very same laws they are prosecuting others for.

Next we will take a look at the way the RSPCA may carry out an investigation or build a case against someone, most of it will probably be unlawful.

It may be that you know nothing about the RSPCA’s interest in you until they knock on the door or climb over your gate, with the police in tow, to raid your property or they may have harassed you for many months or even years before this happens. There are many reasons and many scenarios as to how they go about their unlawful activities, though the police usually refer to the RSPCA “going about their lawful business” the relationship between the RSPCA and police is not sanctioned or authorised by law and so could be an unlawful act either criminal or civil and the question about the relationship between the police and private prosecutors is a question which was sent to the home office some time ago and still awaiting clarification.

Every visit the RSPCA make to you is all about building a case, if they imply things are fine or they leave one of their NON STATUTORY notices, then come back a few days later to check if you have done what they demanded and make out all is now fine, they are probably using these incidents to build a case against you. They sometimes fabricate things just to leave a non statutory notice, as that looks like there is a problem with your animals when in fact there are none, they have been known to leave multiple numbers of the same notice on the same date for the non-existent problem to more than one member of the family identifying each one as a possible co owner, so it makes for a higher number of notices given in a certain period of time, again another little trick of theirs to mislead people and misrepresent the facts. They may also indicate that a problem has been rectified after leaving one of their non statutory notices, only to bring charges at a later date many months after giving the owner the impression that the notice has been complied with. Something which could not be done after issue and compliance of a STATUTORY notice by a local authority appointed inspector under the act, or official inspector, because of the safeguards written in section 10 of the animal welfare act 2006. 

The RSPCA have no powers to enter on your land, but this will not stop them doing just that either. They will trespass against you, mislead you into believing they have powers and rights which they do not have, lie to you and pretend they want to help you, this will eventually turn into them making demands of you and making threats if you do not comply. Anything other than absolute complicity and submission from you and they will mark you as either, aggressive, uncooperative, stupid or having mental health problems etc and it will be used against you. All they want is your animals which they will get any way they see fit, whether that be by tricking or scaring you into signing over your animals to them, threatening you into submission or prosecuting you. They may even visit your neighbours, trying to blacken your name and ask them leading questions about you. There is nothing they will not do to get what they want. All of this is in reality harassment but the police will not take any reports of harassment against the RSPCA, so unless you can afford to take them to court yourself it seems you are stuck in this situation with no remedy.

At some point they will involve the police in all of this and the police will agree that they need the RSPCA there as the RSPCA are the experts, we are not sure what qualifies the RSPCA inspectors as experts as they have no formal qualifications and often not enough animal experience to claim the title of expert. When you consider that the RSPCA claim to be responding to a complaint from a normal member of the public of animals suffering, quite possibly someone who simply has a grudge against you or knows nothing about the species of animal they are complaining about and combined with the inspector not being an expert, yet this combination seems to identify suffering and abused animals, we are sure that an average police constable could spot if an animal is suffering! the government obviously also believe this to be the case as they gave constables powers with veterinary certification or without the need for a vet under the animal welfare act 2006. Are the police saying they are not capable of doing this job? If so shouldn’t they be taking that up with the government and explaining why they cannot spot an animal suffering and in need of help?. If this is the case then it raises many more questions in our opinion.

Getting back to the RSPCA and the police’s unhealthy relationship, the RSPCA often approach the police to apply to the magistrates court for a warrant, as the RSPCA have no powers to do this. The police will believe everything the RSPCA tell them without doing their own checking of facts or any sort of investigation themselves, stating the RSPCA’s lies and over exaggeration as the reason for needing a warrant. The magistrate will issue the warrant on the back of all this without notice to the property owner because the RSPCA always tell the police that if the owner knew about the application for a warrant, they will move the animals, though they usually have no proof of this and no valid reason to back this up. So with warrant in hand, or sometimes even without a warrant, RSPCA inspectors, animal collection officers, any other animal charity the RSPCA feel like involving, police officers and the RSPCA’s favoured vets, who may travel hundreds of miles across the country will descend upon you. Usually this is early morning, before you have cleaned out or fed your animals, add to that strangers upsetting any animals on the property and you will have a mess on top of morning mess, from very upset and frightened animals, perfect for video and photographs. Video and photographs which will probably only be taken after the RSPCA have already been all over the property, so videos and photographs in these instances are not a true account of their findings and gives them time to set things up just as they want them, why is this never challenged in court?. The police are the ones who execute the warrant or force entry without warrant, but you will find that is just about as far as their involvement will be, unless the RSPCA demand that the owner be arrested, then they will carry this order out for the RSPCA and use the excuse that it is to prevent a breach of the peace or some other feeble excuse. The police will just stand about and allow the RSPCA to do as they please, RSPCA instruct the vets, not the other way round, the seizing of animals is never a police constables decision, as provided for in law. The RSPCA are always firmly in charge of what is seized often the police have no idea of what has been seized or even where or how this police seized evidence is going to be kept and they certainly will not tell you, the owner, where your animals are being taken to.

The RSPCA will probably try to insist they interview you after they have had everything seized they want seizing. We would advise you to refuse, they cannot force you to be interviewed, if you agree to being interviewed by the RSPCA insist it is done at a police station with your solicitor present, because for some strange reason the police allow the RSPCA to use the police stations for this activity, though we do not know of any other members of the public who are afforded this privilege. We would love to hear from anyone who can correct us on this matter.

Now the RSPCA have your animals and any other property they had seized for them, you will find it almost impossible to get any contact with them, call backs will take well over a week, arranging for a vet to go and check on your animals will be impossible. One of their favourite excuses to delay contact seems to be ‘the inspector is on holiday, they will contact you when they return’!. This ‘investigation’ will take up the full six months before a summons drops through your door. All this time you will be without a solicitor, unless you can afford to pay privately as legal aid will not be available until you are issued with a summons.