Interested in Reporting Animal Cruelty in the UK? Who Should You Contact?

Reporting animal cruelty in the U.K. can be difficult. When reporting animal abuse in Britain, most people think of RSPCA or Scottish SPCA first when reporting animal abuse – this agency has become the default agency as those responsible have failed to get involved with investigations or prosecutions of animal abuse cases. But in reality this is not accurate – instead other agencies should take responsibility but have shown little willingness.

Many people do not realize there are other official authorities they can approach for assistance, such as police, local governments and DEFRA – all who have previously decried the RSPCA while showing little enthusiasm themselves as it requires expensive and specialist law enforcement measures.

As soon as the government passed their comprehensive Animal Welfare Act 2006, no one was appointed to enforce it.
Recklessly, there is also a misguided belief that the Society possesses magical arrest, forced entry and seizure powers when this is simply untrue. While other agencies don’t have any legal obligations towards prosecution of animal abuse cases, as a result of which RSPCA have always filled this role despite having only moral obligations; many believe that they shouldn’t prosecute and many police authorities, judges, the media and legal profession often criticise this choice, alleging there to be conflicts of interests and becoming the default agency over time.

Ironically, animal cruelty would go undetected without their contribution as they prosecute over 90% of cases filed under the Animal Welfare Act 2006 and are the sole organisation that collects statistics on cruelty – we would have no way of knowing the true scale of abuse across the UK without them! In theory however, other entities such as Police, local authorities and DEFRA should play more of a role. Recently however there has been much hand wringing over suggestions to give legal powers to RSPCA; many other countries have done it successfully with great success.

The National Police Chiefs Association have stated that no single agency is held accountable for enforcing animal welfare under the Animal Welfare Act 2006; therefore there can be inconsistencies and inefficiencies; however police, local authorities, and animal welfare charities strive to collaborate in combatting serious cruelty to animals.’