DogNapping Law

[Pale Rider]

Is there a legal reason why the sentencing guidelines for the existing offence couldn't be modified to take account of emotional distress as well as financial loss? IANAL but I would guess that sentencing guidelines often mention things not mentioned explicitly in the legislation they relate to?

Current guidelines do allow for extra harm, but each offence must be put into a monetary category.

Thus the problem of the loss of the worthless mongrel and the pedigree stud dog worth thousands being equally distressing still exist.

The new offence is part of the Kept Animals Bill which includes other welfare measures, including the ban on exporting animals for slaughter.

Given this Bill is already on the stocks, and given the complication of adding 'something with a pulse' to the existing guidelines which are already fairly complicated, I can see the sense in adding dognapping to the new Bill.

 

[Bromptonaut]

The new offence is part of the Kept Animals Bill

As currently amended it's Section 43:

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/58-02/0195/210195.pdf

Taking of dog without lawful authority etc

(1) A person commits an offence if, without lawful authority or reasonable excuse, the person takes or detains a dog in England—​

(a) so as to remove it from the lawful control of any person, or​

​

(b) so as to keep it from the lawful control of a person who is entitled to have lawful control of it.​

​

On that basis I think it probably is a move forward and worthwhile.

Secret Barrister does however have a point about sentencing.

 

[Pale Rider]

Secret Barrister does however have a point about sentencing.

Hardly, he/she ought to know that theft sentences are largely based on the monetary value of the item stolen.

He/she ought to know that dognapping recognises the harm caused is largely irrelevant to the monetary value of the dog.

Thus he/she ought to be able to conclude that comparing sentences, particularly maximum sentences, is fatally flawed.

Looks more like clickbait for the Secret Twatterer than the Tories.

Although as we've seen on this thread, some people will fall for it.

 

[Bromptonaut]

We'll have to differ there. My reading of his/her work is that it's usually rationalised.

 

[Pale Rider]

We'll have to differ there. My reading of his/her work is that it's usually rationalised.

Some of it looks very iffy to me.

Big deal, you might say, but he/she occasionally crops up in conversation among barristers/hacks/court staff/probation officers/security guards/coppers/anyone else who happens to be there during breaks in proceedings.

The general view accords with my own, to the point where most people I speak to no longer bother reading his/her stuff.

It may be he/she knows that posts which would be approved of by the legal profession wouldn't find favour with the public, so he/she has decided to go for the much larger audience.

Sensible strategy if you want to flog books or advertising on the site.

 

[Bromptonaut]

I've read the books and the blogs and base my opinion on that. I don't really do Twitter.