The Court Case

Four animal welfare volunteers stood on trial for the rescue of animals from Phil Porter. They pleaded not guilty to the burglary on the grounds that they did not act dishonestly and carried out the rescue due to the appalling acts of animal cruelty.

The judge in the case spared them prison, he said, "I accept that each of you was deeply troubled by what you saw at Mr Porter's premises and probably outraged."

"The smaller animals were being kept in conditions which, had the facts been known to the RSPCA, would have led to Mr Porter's prosecution for animal cruelty. Particular concerns were lack of cleanliness and questions of sufficiency of water and food."

The judge also refused to make a compensation order, saying: "Because Mr Porter was probably committing offences of animal cruelty, it was probably he would have had to dispose of these animals and birds."

Key Witnesses

• Mr Phil Porter (ex veal farmer, breeder and pet shop owner)

Mr Porter himself was a star witness in court. He openly told the court that he could see no animal welfare concerns with leaving dogs in cars throughout the summer heat, keeping dogs in veal crates, and leaving animals with contagious disease in with a whole menagerie of animals.

He was presented with the video evidence of his site in court, and asked to comment. He firstly told the court the footage showed the best bits of his site. As the court fell silent, he then told the court it was in fact the worse bits. He then changed his mind again and told the court it was the incriminating bits!

• Dr Roger Mudford: 27 years experience on pet animal behavior, and awarded the Blue Cross Animal Welfare award in 2005. This is what he had to say about our video and photo evidence:

"There is no doubt that this animal suffered considerably from the substantial unhealed wounds that I see in the photographs."

"Both dogs have matted hair and the Collie seemed to bear many scars upon his face, alternatively dried dirt. I consider these conditions to be inadequate and likely to have caused the dogs to suffer."

"Three, possibly more, dogs are shown in small metal runs, which may be calf crates used as impromptu kennels. In my opinion, these are quite inadequate structures for the keeping of dogs, and especially of the large black labrador seen in the film."

"Cross contamination and disease risk to these animals is very high, in addition to the psychological stress crowding incompatible species into a small room."

"I see no obvious signs of a hopper-feeder for the rats, and climbing or coming to the front of their cages would suggest that they were hungry when they were filmed. There is no doubt that the rats shown in the video were denied the essential five freedoms."

"Finally the video focuses upon a large grey-brown rabbit with a scar on its belly and wound to its perineal region. These were probably caused by fighting. The belly wound from being scratched (kicked) by another rabbit, the perineal from a bite. Denial of such care for rabbits with lesions such as these will rapidly lead to fly strike followed by a slow painful death."

• Inspector Lamport (RSPCA):

"This whole area was dirty and unhygienic and teeming with flies."

"These conditions would have contravened the Five Freedoms and would have been an unacceptable standard of keeping them."

"this was unhygienic and unacceptable as a hamster keeping standard and contravenes the Five Freedoms"