Month: February 2020

The Scottish Parliament’s Environment, Climate Change & Land Reform (ECCLR) Committee has published its Stage 1 report on the proposed Animals and Wildlife (Penalties, Protections & Powers) (Scotland) Bill.

This Bill was introduced by Environment Cabinet Secretary Roseanna Cunningham on 30th September 2019 (see here for associated docs) and will, amongst other things, increase the maximum available penalties for the most serious animal welfare and wildlife offences (see here for previous blog).

The ECCLR Committee has held a number of evidence sessions as this Bill passes through Parliamentary scrutiny at Stage 1, including this one where RPUK participated with a number of other organisations and whilst there was certainly some common ground, there was also a lame attempt by BASC to portray the General Licence restriction as an effective sanction against wildlife crime (see here).

The ECCLR Committee’s Stage 1 report reveals some careful and insightful thought on a number of issues and asks some probing questions of the Scottish Government to be answered before the Bill reaches Stage 2 and also makes several recommendations. Of particular interest to us are questions and recommendations on the consistency of categorising wildlife crimes, plans for further resources and/or collaboration on wildlife crime investigations, a full evaluation of the failed Police Special Constables scheme in the Cairngorms National Park, consideration (again) of increased powers for the Scottish SPCA, the need for pre-sentencing impact statements, the concept of vicarious liability being extended to other wildlife crimes, the need for more clarity and guidance from the Scottish Government and Crown Office on what is required for a vicarious liability prosecution, whether the principle of the Victims Right to Review could be extended to wildlife NGOs acting in the public interest to challenge decisions not to prosecute, more public information to be made available to help understand why video evidence is sometimes (too often) deemed inadmissible, whether General Licence restrictions are as effective as they could be and why the restriction is lifted during the appeal process, and the Government’s anticipated response to the Werritty Review.

There’s a lot of good stuff here and it’s well worth having a read of the Committee’s Stage 1 report, available to download here: ECCLRS0520R1

Wild Justice is celebrating its first birthday today.

Here’s who we are and here’s what we’ve been doing.

It’s been quite a year, with several established cases ongoing and a number of others on the verge of launching. If you want to be among the first to know what’s happening, sign up to the free Wild Justice newsletter here. Newsletter #17 has just been distributed with, amongst other things, details about the changes to General Licences in England, Wales and Scotland which are the result of Wild Justice’s legal challenge.

Each case is crowdfunded (i.e. money is raised for that specific project and those funds are ring fenced so they can’t be used for anything else) and the two big ongoing cases (General Licences and the release of non-native gamebirds and their impact on wildlife) are already fully funded thanks to generous support from the public.

However, much time and effort is also spent researching potential new cases, some of which will develop in to a full-blown case and others won’t, for various reasons. This research costs money (even though the three Wild Justice Directors work unpaid) and Wild Justice is currently fundraising for a Fighting Fund to help support this work.

If you like what Wild Justice is doing and would like to donate to the Fighting Fund, please visit here.

Many thanks.

You know, when you’ve spent a number of years submitting freedom of information requests left, right and centre, you eventually develop a sense of when something’s not quite right, of when the wool is being pulled, and of when obstruction is the name of the game.

The Scottish Government is no stranger to criticism over the way it handles FoI requests – have a look at this, for example, which includes a quote from a senior editor, “We frequently come across obstruction, poor practice and clear efforts to restrict access to information – experiences which undermine our confidence in the system“.

Now have a read of the following correspondence and see what you think.

It began with a straightforward FoI request, submitted to Scot Gov on 1 January 2020, asking for the full financial details of commissioning Professor Werritty to Chair the Grouse Moor Management Review Group.

Here’s Scot Gov’s response:

Here’s my response to Scot Gov:

And here’s Scot Gov’s response, telling me it’s not a valid request because I’ve only provided my first name (even though this is part of an ongoing correspondence chain and my surname is provided in my email!) and that they need my surname and title to proceed:

Here’s my response:

So far it’s been six weeks since the very simple question was first asked. Why is it so difficult for the Scottish Government to provide an answer?

UPDATE 19 May 2020: Full cost of Werritty Review finally revealed (here)

Revive, the coalition for grouse moor reform in Scotland has been busy delivering briefing documents to every member of the Scottish Parliament as we await the Government’s response to Professor Werritty’s recommendations for grouse moor management, published just before Xmas.

In addition to the briefing documents, each MSP received a copy of Revive’s latest report, Untold Suffering, written by coalition members OneKind and League Against Cruel Sports Scotland.

The Untold Suffering report was published in December 2019 and illustrates the industrial scale of animal suffering on Scotland’s grouse moors to sustain the grouse shooting industry. It is believed that tens of thousands of animals are snared, trapped and killed on Scotland’s moors just to ensure that there are more grouse available for sport shooting, although this is only a crude estimate; the precise figures aren’t available because there is no requirement for grouse shooting estates to report on the scale of the killing.

The Revive coalition wanted to highlight this aspect of grouse moor management to MSPs as animal welfare isn’t really covered by the Werritty review but absolutely should be part of the Government’s considerations.

For further information about Revive’s recent activities and how you can support the coalition, please visit here.

Members of the Revive coalition are OneKind, League Against Cruel Sports (Scotland), Common Weal, Raptor Persecution UK, Friends of the Earth (Scotland).

Last month the Mail Online published a nasty, vindictive article, believed to have been sourced from the loathsome Countryside Alliance.

Written by ‘journalist’ Vivek Chaudhary, it was claimed that Police Detective Superintendent Lou Hubble, Head of the National Wildlife Crime Unit (NWCU) had featured in a video with me and I was described as an “anti-hunt extremist“, as well as an “animal rights extremist“, five times throughout the article.

Here was the original headline:

It’s quite clear that the use of the term “anti-hunt extremist” was used in this context to create a [wholly false] impression of someone who advocates violent and/or illegal action. Add in the words ‘Police chief’ and ‘House of Commons’ and you’ve got a heady cocktail for hysteria.

I complained about the description and asked to see the evidence that’d been used to justify the use of this ‘extremist’ label but I didn’t get anywhere with either the journalist or his editor. After ten days I threatened to escalate my complaint to legal action for alleged defamation – and yes, I had every intention of taking this forward. This resulted in an almost immediate response from the editor, who didn’t apologise but did remove every description of me being an ‘extremist’ and instead referred to me as a wildlife campaigner and a conservation campaigner in a revised version of the article. Here was the new headline:

That was good but it still wasn’t an apology. The editor tried to dissuade me from seeking one because it would mean he would have to refer my complaint to his senior editorial team. I told him I didn’t think it was unreasonable to seek a written apology given the libellous commentary that had been published.

He did pass on my complaint and, presumably having realised they were in an indefensible position, the very next day I received a full written apology from a senior managing editor and the following footnote was added to the (revised) online article:

This is a good result and hopefully those who are routinely the subject of defamatory online commentary will be encouraged to take similar action in future.

However, although the article had included defamatory slurs against me, I was not the direct target of attack. Lou Hubble was the intended victim, presumably because she’s been working to make life difficult for the raptor-killing criminals within the game shooting industry. As a result of this spiteful article in the Mail Online, and the Countryside Alliance making a formal complaint to the Police about Lou’s ‘behaviour’, Det Sup Hubble has found herself at the centre of an investigation by the Police’s professional standards unit.

This is absolutely outrageous, especially as it was based on inaccurate and defamatory accusations. So a hard-working, dedicated and career-focused wildlife cop, whose job it is to develop partnership working relationships with everybody (including the Countryside Alliance!) decided to participate, in her own time, in a video with over 30 other wildlife campaigners and supporters, including BASC(!!), now faces the threat of disciplinary action, and all because the Daily Mail chose to publish some nasty and inaccurate accusations believed to originate from the Countryside Alliance.

The Mail’s subsequent retractions, amendments and apology will be forwarded to the Police’s professional standards unit and hopefully this will draw their investigation in to Lou Hubble to an immediate halt as they’ll see the complaint for the malicious, squalid witch-hunt it so obviously is.