Would you trust Freedom Foods certified by people like this?

On Sun, 2 Mar 2008 14:51:07 -0000, "Pat Gardiner"
wrote:

Pat's Note: ...and some farmers are daft enough to pay this lot protection
money supposedly for using the Freedom Food label. but really because they
believe it will help keep Defra's bent vets off their backs.

Actually, it isn't ususally farmers, but factory farm conglomerates
pretending to be farmers and the RSPCA rather gave the game away by
admitting that their standards are only an aspiration.

It is a huge joke, isn't it?

Fortunately, we do have robust Courts who are by now well aware of the poor
quality of the RSPCA evidence. That protects the innocent from a uniformed
veterinary paramilitary force.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/m.../02/do0202.xml


Victims of RSPCA bite back

By Christopher Booker
Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 02/03/2008

Parliament Square saw a highly unusual demonstration on February 13. Robed
Hindu priests joined with farmers and animal lovers to protest at the
killing by the RSPCA of a sacred cow, Gangotri, at a Hindu temple in
Hertfordshire.

Two months before, the RSPCA had been invited to examine the cow, which had
been injured by a bull and was being tended by vets. The RSPCA returned
hours later, claiming to hold a court warrant, to give the cow a lethal
injection. The Hindus were horrified. The following day the RSPCA applied
for the warrant that it had claimed to have already.

As Gangotri's ashes were being scattered on the Ganges, the demonstration in
London widened into a general protest against what many people, including
specialist lawyers and vets, regard as the high-handed actions of RSPCA
officials. As one of our biggest charities, with donations of more than £100
million a year, it relies on massive favourable media coverage, reinforced
every time it brings criminal prosecutions against animal abusers. However,
in a succession of recent cases, the courts have severely criticised the
methods used by the RSPCA to mount such prosecutions, against people who
were wholly innocent of the serious charges brought against them.

These cases and the publicity surrounding them have caused intense anguish
to those wrongly accused. In two cases in Harwich and Portsmouth before
Christmas, Nigel Weller, a Lewes solicitor, finally exposed how RSPCA
witnesses had concerted their evidence in advance, using a proforma document
to "coach" witnesses in what to say - about which magistrates and a judge
expressed grave concerns. In each case the defendants, accused of depriving
a dog and two cats of a balanced diet, were acquitted on all charges.

In the same month Maidstone Crown Court heard the appeal of Craig Sargent, a
Kent farmer, who had been fined £12,000 and ordered to pay £20,000 costs on
five charges brought by the RSPCA including four of cruelty. After hearing
his barrister, Jonathan Rich (briefed by Mr Weller), Judge Jeremy Carey
agreed that the RSPCA had been unable to produce any evidence of cruelty.

In Norwich in January, Judge Philip Browning was critical of the RSPCA's
conduct in seizing a much-loved pony, Florry, which had been with Martin and
Gina Griffin's family for 20 years. The RSPCA held Florry in an animal
sanctuary for over a year, claiming that she was "emaciated". The Griffins'
vet, Charlotte Mayers, made it clear from the start that vets from her
practice were treating the horse, which was laminitic and needed to be kept
thin for that reason. Colin Vogel, the author of the RSPCA's own veterinaray
manual on horse-care supported her views. At one point the RSPCA had wanted
to put Florry down, but after 15 months she was finally re-united with her
owners.

In February, after another five days in court, a cruelty case against
Annette Nally, owner of Holly, a German shepherd, was called into question
when it was found that RSPCA documents alleging her failure to treat the dog
properly for ear and bowel conditions related to another dog. Holly died six
months after the RSPCA had seized her (as Miss Nally only discovered five
months later). In acquitting her on all charges, Judge David Chinnery
praised her obvious care for her animals and her "impressive" evidence, and
also that of her chief witness, Colin Vogel.

The Self-Help Group of farmers and others has existed for nearly two decades
to put anyone experiencing difficulty with the RSPCA in touch with
specialist welfare lawyers and vets. They have never been busier and cite
scores of other instances in recent years. None is more shocking than that
of PC Jonathan Bell, a Stoke-on-Trent policeman who in 2004 was called to a
night-time disturbance where a cat had been squashed flat by a car. The
RSPCA could not be contacted, so he put the cat out of its misery with a
spade.

PC Bell was prosecuted for cruelty by the RSPCA and the case dragged on for
two years, at a cost of £50,000. After his initial acquittal, the RSPCA
appealed. Finally, in April 2006, the High Court threw out the case,
prompting the Federation of Companion Animal Societies to comment that some
of the RSPCA's prosecutions "seem to have a political agenda" rather than
being concerned with "animal welfare". The growing number of people who fall
foul of that agenda would heartily agree.