Only One in 300 Animal Welfare Complaints at UK Farms Leads to Prosecution

Charities say animal abusers are not being held to account due to the small number of inspections.

According to a study, just one in 300 complaints about animal welfare at UK farms led to a prosecution over the last four years, while half of the accused holdings were not even inspected.

A report by Animal Equality, an organization working to end cruelty to farmed animals, and the Animal Law Foundation revealed that fewer than 3% of the UK's estimated 291,000 farms had an annual inspection by a public body between 2018 and 2021.

The charities say there is one inspector for every 205 farms, and that the "risk-based" inspection regime prioritizes "higher-risk" farms, for example those that have been the subject of a complaint, but even these farms are not always inspected.

"Non-compliance is endemic, evidenced time and again through undercover investigations and now further bolstered by the data revealed in this report," said Abigail Penny, executive director of Animal Equality UK.

Penny added: "Pigs are having their tails cut off, cows are unable to walk or stand and hens are crammed into overcrowded cages, yet farms are typically receiving little more than a slap on the wrist. These findings are disturbing and should be alarming to any consumer. Animal abusers need to truly be held accountable. Right now, this is evidently not the case."

According to the report, titled "The Enforcement Problem" and compiled using data gathered from public bodies, non-compliance on site was identified at just under a third of the farms inspected after a complaint. Like prosecutions, the use of other legislative enforcement actions was rare. Although local authorities received 6,466 complaints relating to farmed animal welfare in 2020, only 144 improvement, care or compliance notices were issued.

The authors found that even when investigations by animal protection organizations such as Animal Equality, Animal Aid, Compassion in World Farming and Open Cages uncovered evidence of illegal activity or substandard practices, these went unpunished. According to the study, approximately seven in 10 of the 65 such exposés released between 2016 and 2021 resulted in no formal enforcement action.

The report notes that with more than 180 public bodies responsible for legal oversight and enforcement, including local authorities, "inconsistencies and confusion have arisen. The disjointed nature of regulation and law enforcement has enabled a lack of continuity, enforcement and accountability."

The UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is charged with overseeing policy enforcement in England, while the devolved governments have responsibility in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. However, in England, Scotland and Wales, day-to-day enforcement is in the hands of the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) and local authorities.

"The problem exists across all areas of animal law. What makes it particularly jarring for farmed animals is not only the extent of the problem but the constant proclamations that the UK has some of the highest animal welfare standards on farms and slaughterhouses in the world," said Edie Bowles, a solicitor and executive director of the Animal Law Foundation.

Bowles added: "If these standards only exist on paper and are not upheld in practice, the value of those laws is rendered questionable at best and redundant at worst."

The APHA said: "We take breaches of animal welfare legislation very seriously and investigate every allegation that is reported to us."

The Scottish government also said it takes animal welfare very seriously, while the Welsh government said it was a priority and referred to the APHA's control regime.

Source:The Guardian

This news article was translated into Turkish by Özlem Sağ.