Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Bill (First sitting)

Anna Turley Excerpts

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 23rd July 2019 Public Bill Committees

[Sir Oliver Heald]

I think there is an overwhelming case. Thank you very much.

[Anna Turley (Redcar) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q First, I thank both of your organisations for all the campaigning work that you have done to support us in getting to this place, and for all the work that your staff do every day. The case of Baby the bulldog, which was mentioned earlier, is what drove me to get involved in this, and that came to sentencing only because of the really good work by the RSPCA and your members of staff. I am sure that they felt the same as the public did—all that work to get these people to court for that horrendous event, and then to see just a suspended sentence, an electronic tag and a fine. That was insufficient. Thank you for everything that you do.

Building on Sir Oliver’s point about aggravating, I have an interest in filming and the use of social media. Is the filming of incidents of abuse and harassment for entertainment on the increase? How is that affecting your ability to prosecute or to take cases forward, and could that be an aggravating element in the seriousness of a case?

Michael Flower: We receive quite a number of complaints that make reference to the social media site Snapchat. The figures I have seen show that in 2015 there were 27 complaints that mentioned Snapchat, and in 2018 there were 214. That would tend to indicate that there is a significant increase.

On an individual case-by-case basis, I am often asked why cruelty continues and seems to be increasing, and why serious cruelty seems to be increasing. I do not really know the answer, but I have a very strong suspicion that social media is a contributory factor. I have children who are on Facebook and so on, and a lot of people on these sites seem to live an almost artificial life, where they want to glorify their activities. One way a proportion of people seem to do it is to commit acts of cruelty and then put them on the internet so that others can see it. It is damaging, because it is almost publicising and promoting cruelty. To my mind, this is yet another aggravating feature. I believe that the Sentencing Council will recognise that fact—it has included that in the current sentencing guidelines. That is all positive, but it is an issue and I am sure that it leads to more cruelty.

From an enforcement point of view, it is sometimes helpful, because if we can secure the material that is being posted, we have pretty good evidence of what is being done by which individuals to which animals. It does not always work, because some of the material on these social media sites is deleted very quickly and cannot always be retrieved. It is quite surprising that we have had a number of pretty high-profile cases, including dog fighting. In one of the last cases I dealt with, they were going into fields in Bedfordshire, I think, and staging fights in the middle of the field and filming them. Then they put it on social media, where one of our researchers saw it and we were able to deal with the offending. It is a mixed blessing. It helps to perpetuate cruelty and it does not always solve it.

Claire Horton: We see that in all sorts of other issues. It is not just in animal cruelty; it is in everything. It is people trolling young people and encouraging suicide. Social media has an awful lot to account for. Certainly, anecdotally, I would agree. I agree, actually, that in some places it is quite useful to have that footage. It works as some sort of shock tactic, for many people. It raises awareness for many people, but it also drives copycat behaviour with others. That is probably the real concern. I don’t think it is going away any time soon, but the more we can be clear about our intolerance of that sort of behaviour and how it is punished, that has got to help in tackling these crimes.

[Anna Turley]

Q Just to confirm, you say that social media companies take these videos down, but they are under no obligation to pass them to either the police or yourselves—they are just deleted, gone, and that is it?

Michael Flower: I do not think it is the social media companies that take them down. From people who know about these things—I am not one of them—my understanding is that on Instagram, for example, where a lot of people seem to post images, it automatically comes off after 24 or 48 hours, so it comes and goes.

[Bill Grant (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Con)]

Q Thank you for sharing your knowledge of social media and the impact it has on cruelty. Do you have somebody monitoring the footage that appears on Instagram or Snapchat, for instance? How are you made aware of it? Have you any examples where you have approached the company or platform provider, and if you have, have they proved helpful to you?

Michael Flower: The footage tends to come to our attention partly by other people who have seen it reporting it. That is particularly common with juvenile offenders of school age, where peers in school will see their friends publicising themselves on one of these sites and are appalled by it, and so they report it. We do have officers who tend to trawl the internet looking for evidence of cruelty, particularly the more organised crime, such as large-scale puppy trading or dog fighting. I cannot recall a time when we have had to go to one of the internet company providers. I do not know what sort of reaction we would get. I am not aware of it being done.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Chalk]

I take that point. Thank you very much. That is all I wanted to explore.

[Anna Turley]

Q Thank you very much for your evidence so far. Could you share from your experience on the degree of consistency or inconsistency in what you see from the sentencing so far in such cases under the existing legislation? As a second part of that, could you talk about how, when lawyers are defending their clients, they seek to convince the court that their client should face a lesser sentence? What mitigating factors, or even aggravating factors that work against them, have you seen so far? I will start with Inspector O’Hara.

Inspector O'Hara: The majority of offences that I have seen prosecuted by the police are probably not cases that would hit the higher end of the sentencing bracket. They are largely cases involving an animal hoarder—generally somebody who has some mental health problems or another underlying reason for amassing 20 animals in a property. It is that sort of offence that we typically see day in, day out. At the last count, when I ran the figures for the EFRA Committee inquiry report a couple of years ago, broadly speaking—this is from memory—around 85% of the prosecutions were done by the RSPCA and about 15% by police or local authorities, with the burden of that shared by the police.

That typically tends to be my experience. We have not had any tail-docking cases that I can think of in London, but we have ear-cropping mutilations and general animal cruelty rather than organised crime or that more serious end of it. All those cases have been dealt with in a magistrates court so far, but the sentencing in London is fairly consistent because all those cases go to one court, although elsewhere in the country it is probably not so. Most of those cases are dealt with by way of a fine or other ancillary orders rather than imprisonment.

[Anna Turley]

Q What proportion of the cases that you have seen have pushed the envelope and outstripped the existing sentencing bracket?

Inspector O'Hara: It is a very small number.

Mike Schwarz: I do not know whether I can add to that. The only point I would make, triggered by that thought, is about the position in Northern Ireland, where the unnecessary suffering provision in section 4 is not limited to domesticated animals but applies across the board. There would be a significant disparity of sentencing for exactly the same facts for a case in Northern Ireland compared with England and Wales if the Bill is passed. That is the only helpful contribution I can make, other than to refer to the existing sentencing guidelines, which are very helpful.

[Sandy Martin]

Q Mr Schwarz, we have heard about the need to get the Bill passed. We have also heard about the difficulties of making a distinction between wild animals and domestic animals. I asked the representative of the RSPCA about a review, which he thought was a sensible idea. How soon after passing the Bill would it be sensible to have a review?

Mike Schwarz: I would like to think the points I make are sound in principle and therefore one does not need a great deal of evidence in order to have that review. I am not being vain about it, but there are flaws in the structure of the Bill which, if recognised, merit a review. Having said that, I would not dismiss evidence or views, particularly from the judiciary.

You mentioned how the judges might be grappling with this. Suppose the Bill were passed today, the first prosecutions might come about in the next six to 12 months, particularly they were Crown court cases. After 12 months, there might be some instances where problems—or lack of problems—emerge. I see that there were about 700 or 800 prosecutions in 2018 under the Animal Welfare Act. During that year, there was likely to be a significant proportion of helpful cases. Soundings could be taken of the judiciary and it could be advised after the Bill passes that Parliament would be assisted by view.

It would take perhaps a year, if one attaches importance to evidence, but sooner if it is accepted that, as a matter of principle, the absence of a level playing field needs to be addressed earlier.