URRY: In tonight’s programme, the RSPCA, which prides

itself on freeing animals from cruelty and neglect, is accused of a lack of compassion for pet

owners, and we hear worries about the role the charity plays in child abuse investigations.

ANNETTE NALLY FEEDING DOGS

NALLY: Come here, good boys …

URRY: Annette Nally feeding her dogs at home in

Northamptonshire.

NALLY: Careful. Good boys.

URRY: These are greyhounds - old and retired from racing,

but well cared for. Annette used to have another dog, Holly, a German Shepherd. In January

2006 the RSPCA took her pet into their care and she never saw Holly again. She too was a

rescue dog, with an incurable condition causing bowel problems, which made it impossible

for her previous owners to keep her. But Annette was a countrywoman, who bred and rode

horses. She had land and outbuildings. Perfect for Holly, who couldn’t be kept indoors

because of her condition. A home was made for her in a stable and the two became close

companions.

NALLY: I could trust her with a baby, you know what I mean?

She always had the sweetest sweetest temperament, a lovely lovely dog. She struggled to

digest her food and she was on a type of food that wasn’t going to get the weight on her. She

couldn’t have titbits and things like that because it would just trigger diarrhoea or something

like that, you know, you had to keep her on a very bland diet.

URRY: There was no treatment that would cure her?

NALLY: No, only food. I’d discussed it a number of times with

vets and German Shepherd breeders that I knew. They just recommended the food and it

worked, so you know, she was never going to be a fat dog but she was physically fit and

happy.

URRY: For six years Annette cared for Holly, but then,

following a routine visit by the RSPCA to her stables, concerns were raised about the

condition and weight of the animal. Annette Nally says she told them there were good

reasons Holly was thin, but it didn’t seem to make much difference. Inspectors continued to

visit, apparently unswayed by her explanations.

NALLY: It just went on for months and months where, you

know, they would visit probably once a fortnight or once a week or something like that and

they’d be dropping food over the door. And obviously then that would trigger a bout of

diarrhoea, then they’d come back two days later and yes, it would be in a mess because you

know, her bowels would be in a mess.

URRY: Well, why would they drop food over the door for a

dog that’s on a special diet?

NALLY: I don’t know. I don’t know, you know, and again, you

know, I would phone them the minute I’d seen that they do that, I’d arrive home, there’s a notice

on the door they’ve put food over the door. I can see that, you know, there’s been some food left

and I’d phone them up and I’d just plead with them not to do it and they just weren’t listening.

URRY: What sort of notices were they leaving?

NALLY: Just like a welfare notice that, you know, saying what

their concerns were and that they need addressing. And, you know, a couple of times I

would have notices on there to say the dog had food, the dog had water, it had bedding but

they still left a welfare notice and, you know, I just couldn’t, couldn’t understand why they

were harassing me.

URRY: That’s what it felt like, did it – harassment?

NALLY: Yeah, totally, yeah.

URRY: One day, Annette Nally returned home from work to

find Holly had been taken. She had to wait almost two years until the case was brought to

trial. Her defence team say it took so long because there were serious delays caused by a

failure to hand over prosecution documents vital to the fair preparation of their case. That’s

known as disclosure. Defence barrister Anne Marie Gregory wanted to see Holly’s kennel

and treatment records during her time in the care of the RSPCA, but there was a mix up and

the wrong records relating to another dog were sent. The trial was put back. Finally, after

wrangling over the issue, the right paperwork came through. Armed with that, Anne Marie

Gregory was able to mount a successful defence.

GREGORY: The significance, I suppose, in a nutshell, was that the

RSPCA were complaining that Annette Nally had not given x, y and z treatments. When we

finally did get disclosure it turns out that the dog had not received x, y and z treatments in

the RSPCA care either.

URRY: What sort of treatment should the dog have had?

GREGORY: Miss Nally was being criticised for, I think it was not

treating redness to the ears, some kind of skin infection. When the documents were finally

released, it shows that there was no proper treatment given to the dog and the court found

that Annette Nally had done absolutely nothing, nothing different to what the RSPCA had

done or would have done while the dog was in their care. The court also were told to make

it very clear that Annette Nally had been doing her best for what was an old dog and had

done nothing to cause this dog to suffer. In fact, she had gone out of her way to try and

ensure it wasn’t suffering.

URRY: She was cleared of all charges. Although the RSPCA

says it accepts the decision of the courts, it insists it had enough evidence to bring the case.

Prosecution case manager Phil Wilson disputes the defence’s version of events.

WILSON: The evidence presented to the prosecutions

department clearly demonstrated there was a case for this lady to answer. There was

sufficient veterinary evidence, which concluded this animal had suffered unnecessarily.

URRY: It’s an old dog with a stomach condition. You should

have spotted that before it came to court.

WILSON: Well perhaps the owner should have spotted it and

taken it for veterinary treatment.

URRY: But there was no treatment that was effective. Your

people treated it and they failed to make it any better.

WILSON: And I accept that. If that is the reason why she was

acquitted, that’s quite proper. It’s a proper function of the court.

URRY: Yes, but my point is you knew about that months

before it came to trial. You’d had the dog in your care for ten months. You knew it wasn’t

responding to treatment. So what I’m asking is, why didn’t you just stop the case.

WILSON: Because it’s not appropriate just to stop the case. It

usurps the role of the court.

URRY: Why all the delays over the disclosure of the right

information to the defence?

WILSON: There was criticism of both parties in respect of

disclosure.

URRY: You were directed to disclose all the boarding and

veterinary records of the dog and you didn’t do that at that time.

WILSON: And if that is the case then I apologise for that. We

should have done.

URRY: For Annette Nally it was a bitter victory. She says

delays in disclosing documents meant not only was she denied for too long the opportunity

to clear her name, but that they hid another truth. Holly had died whilst in the care of the

RSPCA, well before the case got to trial.

NALLY: We kept going back to court and the first thing my

judge would say was, ‘Since we were here last we still don’t know where the dog is or what

condition the dog’s in,’ so in the end the judge ordered that their lawyer find out. And the

same day he did then inform the court that she’d died.

URRY: So you heard because the court was informed, not

because anybody told you?

NALLY: Yeah absolutely yeah, that’s how I found out in the

courtroom yeah. I was absolutely devastated because, sorry, (cries) … the whole idea of

going through this was to get her back, so to find out what, you know, going through all this

and not going to get her then, you know, what was the point?

URRY: How did the dog end up dying in the care of the

RSPCA?

WILSON: I think my understanding of it was this dog was

somewhere in the region of ten or eleven years old when it was taken into care, and not

unsurprisingly, aged animals pass away.

URRY: Did you have a post-mortem then to establish the

cause of death?

WILSON: I’m afraid I don’t know the specific details to that

extent.

URRY: Did anyone establish what the dog did die of? You’re

suggesting it was old age, but how do we know?

WILSON: I’m not suggesting anything. I’m telling you the dog

was ten or eleven years old and that old animals pass away.

URRY: Given that the dog was at the centre of a case of

neglect, shouldn’t you know what the dog died of?

WILSON: Well, I’m not saying the RSPCA doesn’t know.

That’s not information that I have.

URRY: Having been cleared, for Annette Nally there was one

final injustice. She can’t lay her pet to rest.

NALLY: I’ve spoken to my lawyer a couple of times. There’s

been letters and things, but it appears they’ve lost her body, so you know, I’m supposed to

just move on without her. To me it feels like, you know, she’s lost at sea somewhere, you

know, and until I get her back then, you know, I can’t become settled to know where she is.

URRY: Unlike in Scotland, where its counterpart puts files to

the procurator fiscal for a decision about whether to prosecute, the RSPCA in England and

Wales takes its own cases to court. Last year it brought about a thousand of those private

prosecutions. They are criminal trials, usually held in magistrates courts. The charity is

proud of its successful conviction rate of 97%. In 2007, its prosecution costs rose to almost

£8 million, an increase of £1.7 million on the previous year. But Tim Wass, chief officer of

the RSPCA’s Inspectorate argues that new laws which came into force last year could mean

fewer court cases.

WASS: One of the reasons that I’m enjoying the process

involving the Animal Welfare Act as much as I am is that that piece of legislation, because

it’s enabling our advice to be more effective, means that it’s a win for everybody. The

RSPCA I hope over time is going to have to prosecute less. The owners are actually caused

to do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do, to live up to their duty of care, which

means that they themselves don’t find themselves in court …

AAS: The BC PCA Act required the BC SPCA to issue an Order imposing standards of care on owners before seizing, yet in 2003, the SPCA began making seizures without issuing an Order, actions that lawyers descibed to AAS as abuses of statuatory power. Imposing Orders that would have quietly improved the care of animals while leaving them where they were familiar and often happy, would not have attracted any media attention, though it would have been animal welfare. We know that there are cases of abusive neglect that are so egregious that a seizure must be made as soon as possible, but AAS documented many seizures where the animals would clearly have been better off in the hands of their owners than in the hands of the SPCA.