The RSPCA persecutes innocent animal owners to generate the publicity that keeps donations of £115 million a year rolling in.

This is a view of some critics who have noted a number of questionable actions launched by the RSPCA, specifically the confiscation of a herd of ponies from a retired builder, who then hanged himself, and the three-year pursuit through the courts of a horse breeder, which recently resulted in his acquittal and being told that he could leave the court with an untarnished reputation.

According to columnist Christopher Booker, writing in the Sunday Telegraph, the charity is not the organisation it was and its donors should be told of its failings. A self-help group, the-shg.org, has been set up to advise on RSPCA persecution.