The RSPCA has welcomed moves by specialist pet insurer Petplan to dump its online-only dog breeder approval scheme and carry out telephone interviews with those applying.

Previously any breeder or supplier of puppies could apply for and get accepted onto the Petplan Breeder Scheme, which gave them a veneer of respectability and the right to advertise their dogs on the Petplan website. Accordingly a number of unscrupulous dog dealers, keeping dogs in appalling conditions and with a very high death rate, signed up.

Earlier this year police and RSPCA officers raided one “puppy farm” in Solihull approved for the Petcare scheme, and found “horrific” evidence of puppies being badly treated, resulting in owner Sean Kerr, 52, being given a six month jail sentence and ordered to pay £30,000 costs for causing unnecessary suffering.

The NSPCC has called for heavy fines for Facebook and other social network companies if they fail to delete content that could harm children online.

Recently such content as child abuse pornography, hate preaching, racism and cannibalism has not been deleted by social media companies when it should have, although Facebook claim they are hiring 3,000 extra moderators to address the problem.

A Muslim I.T. tutor stole from his charity employer to pay for hotel stays with his secret Christian girlfriend.

Inner London crown court heard that Qasim Saeed ordered £25,000 worth of computer equipment on behalf of the Second Chance jobseekers charity in Walworth and then sold it to fund the hotel liasons. Saeed of Ilford admitted fraud and received an 18 month jail sentence suspended for two years, 150 hours of community service and an order to repay his employer in full.

A dog-owner who was prosecuted after his three dogs died when left in his car without water or ventilation for five hours has told his story on camera to support the RSPCA’S annual DOGS DIE IN HOT CARS summer campaign.

Jonathan Theaobald, 66, from Peterborough left his three Staffordshire bull terriers in his car last year for five hours while he went to the gym. Although the weather was overcast the temperature inside the car reached an estimated 40C, enough to kill the dogs. Theobald pleaded guilty to causing unnecessary suffering to dogs, was handed an 18 week jail sentence suspended for two years, was banned from keeping pets for ten years and ordered to pay £1,900 in fines and costs. Continue reading →

Animal abusers could face far more severe sentences if a Private Member’s Bill presented by Redcar Labour Co-operative MP Anna Turley is successful.

Campaigners say the current maximum prison term of six months is too lenient when fly-tippers can get up to five years, the maximum term they say animal abusers should face. Apparently nine out of ten offenders avoid jail altogether, despite strong evidence that those who hurt defenceless animals will do, or have done the same to defenceless humans. Continue reading →

Following a two year investigation the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has now fined some of Britain’s largest and best-regarded charities for illegal collection of information on their donors without their knowledge to establish their total wealth, the better to extract further donations. Details of fines for breaching the Data Protection Act follow. Continue reading →

Public awareness of mental health issues has been increased by the admission by Prince Harry to anti-suicide charity CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably) that he didn’t come to terms with his mother’s death when he was 12 years old, but bottled it up for 20 years, coming close to a breakdown as a result. His brother Prince William, who persuaded him to accept counselling, said that the “stiff upper lip” mindset was dangerous when it affected health.

Men especially hold to the view that it is unacceptable and a sign of weakness to talk about emotions and feelings, leading to the fact that suicide is the biggest killer of men aged under 45 in the UK. Continue reading →

The Safer Living Foundation, which works to rehabilitate paedophiles, has been criticised for organising a Family Fun Day to raise funds and not making it clear to parents attending what their money was going to be used for.

Some parents have since stated that they would never have supported the event, held on Easter Saturday at the Keyworth United football ground in Nottinghamshire, had they had realised.

However the charity has said that its aims are prevention of paedophile offences as well as psychological help for those who have already offended and has apologised if some who supported them were not aware of this.

The Insolvency Service has warned all former directors of the collapsed Kids Company charity that they could face disqualification.

Those facing bans from boardrooms are former chairman and creative director of the BBC Alan Yentob, founder Camila Batmanghelldjh, Rowan Atkinson’s ex-wife Sunetra Atkinson and former WH Smith boss Richard Handover. The public accounts committee branded the directors “negligent” for the way they let the charity run, with much of the £46 million of taxpayer’s money over 13 years being given to children, including those of staff, “willy-nilly”.

Following the 2015 collapse Yentob was forced to resign from his £330,000 BBC job after trying to intervene in the BBC’s news coverage of the shambles. Batmanghelldjh told the press “I’ll be back”.