UKC

5 years for killing cats, big profits for killing sheep, cattle and pigs? 

And?

Discuss... 

He's shown no remorse. 

Pity he can't serve time sharing a cage with a big cat ( tiger or a lion), but that wouldn't b fair on the cat.

I'm pleasantly surprised by the sentence. You'd have to do some really serious damage to a human being to attract a 5 year sentence.

Cold blooded animal killers should go on some sort of lifelong register where they are constantly monitored. Many murderers start out hurting animals.

5 years would be fair if he actually served 5 years.

Edit: And don’t conflate cold blooded animal killing with killing animals in a humane way for food. 

I've zero sympathy for this waste of space, but there's an argument to be had regarding the consistency of sentencing with things like dog fighting, badger baiting and fox hunting. I'd happily include the thuggish/psycho elements who occasionally get caught torturing animals in abattoirs as well. FWIW, I'm not a veggie.

The suggestion of a register of animal tormentors is spot on.

If you spent a couple of years going out at night randomly stabbing to death other peoples sheep, cattle and pigs, I'd imagine you'd receive a similar sentence.

Amazing the mental gymnastics humans can perform to delight in the murder (there is no humane method of raising then killing a being with sentience and an expressed preference to continue living) of one fluffy animal yet punish the murder of another. It would give us all the twisties if we could be bothered to open our eyes. 

In any society killing is never completely wrong. Context is everything.

Amazing the mental gymnastics vegans can perform in equating enjoying the odd pork pie with taking "delight in the murder".

Totally agree. And the systematic production of millions of animals for an unnecessary and environmentally destructive (and inefficient!) dietary pleasure is one context in which I find killing to be wrong. 

Pig is born, pig lives life experiencing range of sensory and neurological inputs and social complexities equal or greater than those experienced by dogs and cats and baby humans. Pig prefers, as cat and dog alike, to continue experiencing life and sensory input. Pig is killed deliberately for profit by human who is not threatened by pig. Human collects money, delights in a job well done. Human eats pork pie, delights in flavor and texture experience equated wrongly with dead body of pig. How is the human’s delight at eating the pie not coming at the expense of the life of the pig (or dog or cat), a life taken not in self defense or fair fight or even hunting, but in a desire for money (and sensory delight)? It seems more like a 200 meter dash of empathy and logic and economics than gymnastics. 

Apparently a common pre-cursor to attacks on humans. Certainly someone who should be on the justice system's radar.

Jk

precisely. For some the death of animals for food is not only acceptable but not even on their radar. It is the same for a lot of things the environmental destruction of habitat for housing/raw materials, even farming. In some countries execution of criminals is acceptable in others it is not. We send people to other countries to kill people and call them heros.

It makes me think that wrong is not an absolute but dependent upon cultural influences.

You could demonstrate a similar plot between a family of four jetting off on holiday and them “taking delight” in the ongoing climate disaster.

You still wouldn’t convince me that enjoying two weeks in Torremolinas equates with rubbing your hands with glee at the thought of murdering a planet.

There is no such crime as cat murder and hence cats cannot be put in prison for it. Ditto for cattle, sheep and pigs. What on earth are you talking about?!

This:  https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-sussex-58017099

In Norman imposed law, murdrum was the offence of killing a Frenchman/Norman only, in post Hastings England.  Saxon lives mattered less.

Irrespective of your (and possibly mine and other folk's) opinion if the policies of the governments in place at the time that is a gross slur on soldiers who are far braver than I am. You possibly didn't mean it; but please think about it. To say that the purpose of being in Afghanistan or Iraq is to kill people is analogous with saying the purpose of transport is to kill people in RTA's and to pollute the environment.

Unless you follow Kant or Spinoza then right and wrong are certainly not absolutes.

Oh I know they are brave. I don't dispute that. But you perfectly highlight my point. We send people to other countries admittedly currently to act as peace keeping forces. Yet we (myself included) expect them to kill to preserve that peace. Therefore there are times when I advocate killing and have no problem with that within the context of my cultural situation.

Just to clarify: I understand that the purpose of being in Afganistan and other such places is a complex situation on many levels and not just about killing.

You do know that by just replying on the internet you are complicit in the killing of animals don’t you?

I like the Buddhist perspective  (among others) of causing the least amount of suffering to other beings. 

Have recently found somewhere which sells a whole Muntjac deer carcass for £65 if you can wait for 2 weeks, presumably they go and hunt it, which seems like a great way of eating meat with minimal or no suffering if they're a good shot, and it's good environmentally too, I just need to learn how to butcher. If I order one that'll be a good prompt.

Anybody who kills animals for their own satisfaction of stabbing them probably needs to be watched very carefully, like others suggest.

Consume or be consumed.

My guess is if he was in a cage with a lion he'd be doing a lot less than 5 years.

Seems like he was done for carrying the knife and multiple counts of criminal damage.  

The criminal damage charge came from the cats not being his and the damage to the cat owners in terms of distress and vet bills.  If he'd owned the cats presumably it would have been animal cruelty and the sentence would have been less.   In the case of farm animals clearly the farmer owns them and the killing is supposed to be humane.

Morally it is questionable, but legally I can see why the outcome is this guy gets 5 years and farmers/abattoir owners don't.

There are strong links between animal and human abusive behaviour and this has been discussed a fair amount in the veterinary literature. 

Hopefully this conviction sharpens minds to catch the one who is beheading cats round my way(ideally before they get bored of cats…) 

You'd get a lot less for killing a cyclist with a truck.

A friend whom I met in Nepal was from a family of Buddhist herdsmen (herdspersons?) in Tibet before they fled the Chinese. He told me that in order to stop wolves predating on their yak herds they would dig a wolf pit to trap it. The logic being that they hadn't killed the wolf because it was the wolf's own karma that led it into the pit

On a similar line they all ate meat but aquired it from non-Buddhists so they didn't have to kill it. The logic being it was dead already and it was a greater crime to waste the sacrifice that others had brought upon it.

Cats are better than cyclists to be fair.

Cycling cats, even better.

Thanks.

My underlying point though was that humans killing non-human animals isn't murder, in the same way that falling off a cliff isn't flying. Using emotive language to polarise an issue is one of the great diseases of our time (hypocrisy intended), no doubt it's not a solely modern problem but it's one of the reasons that people of different viewpoints working together is failing in modern society (in my opinion).

It is a myth that animal cruelty (plus fire setting and enuresis- bed wetting- The Macdonald Triad) are useful predictors of further violence.

It is certainly not a common precursor to attacks on humans / murder.  There are very few / actually no risk factors for violence that are specific enough to say common (i.e. above 50% of people with trait x go on to be violent). Let alone for murder. Also violence as a phenotype is meaningless- shouting threats (technically an assault with no injury)? a punch? or decapitation?  

Male sex is a good predictor in that almost all violence is committed by men- young men to boot- rather oddly the most violent humans are toddlers- (perhaps not on the seriousness side- but the most frequently and widespread). But of course not all men are violent (whatever that actually means).

But he is obviously a very strange man.

This is not my area but I'm curious, are we considering the same question?

What fraction of human on human violent people started out abusing animals?

Isn't quite the same question as:

What fraction of animal abusers subsequently comit violence against felow humans?

I don't think i'm being stupid, you seem to be adressing one while the other is perhaps of more interest. Of course the answer may be few in both cases and i could just be wrong.

Jk

A 'very' brief google suggests 21 percent of serial killers also tortured animals, while 45 percent of school shooters had alleged histories of animal abuse (in the US I gather). 

If one ponders it, I think it's hard to see somebody who'd do that to cats, being less likely than the average person to go onto do something to humans, rather than more likely...

Probably get a whole lot more if you did it deliberately and a multitude of times.

Legally, but morally?

If you aren't religious why would you make a distinction between one type of animal and another?  It's reasonable to think humans are quantitatively more intelligent than many animals but are humans qualitatively different, isn't it all just neural networks built from much the same stuff?

Cats and dogs seem pretty intelligent to me and they are definitely cuter than pigs but are they more intelligent than pigs?  Chimpanzees are obviously intelligent and they look like us so its easy to get consensus they shouldn't be killed but it could be that whales are intrinsically more intelligent than us, just don't look like us and don't have hands so can't use tools.

Seems to me that the determination of which animals it is OK to kill and eat for food is more about anthropomorphism and convenience than logic or science.

Would you like to back that up with some data?

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28279899/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32365760/

Hunting and killing cats is a giant red-flag for mental illness that is escalating dangerously.

Anyone who does this needs rapid help/intervention/perhaps even sectioning.

I'm not sure that 5 year sentence is helpful unless previous treatment attempts have tried and failed, as this is most likely illness rather than compos mentis crime and you'll end up with an even worse loonie after a few years custodial.

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This is an entirely different issue to the meat industry ethics debate

Because different animals are different, religion has nothing to do with it. In terms of personal morals, I think it is more about intelligence than how cute things look, I'm quite happy with killing and eating all the things that are commonly eaten in the UK and quite a lot of the things that are not (alligators, camels, etc. etc) with the exception of pigs where their level of intelligence makes me think that it's probably not moral to eat them. However I eat pig meat because I like it and I don't have to act along strictly moral grounds, I can and do often choose not to.

I don't think it is morally right to eat whales, chimpanzees, dolphins, etc. and I wouldn't do that unless the situation necessitated it (e.g. I was starving), in which case I'd eat anything really, even other humans if they were already dead. I don't think killing other humans for food is morally defensible though, even if you are starving, as to whether I'd do it in that situation, well, I don't think most people could possibly know till they got there.

I guess it becomes more complicated when it comes to dogs and cats. I wouldn't really want to eat either. I don't think I have a moral problem with people eating them though.

All this obviously assumes that you are killing the animals in the most humane way possible.

sentience rather than intelligence which I would call sapience.  The evidence is that many animals feel they exist and experience fear and other emotions without having to have conceptualised self.  I don't see why conceptualising rather than feeling self should qualify an animal over one that doesn't given both  have a feeling of self and existence, of fear, pleasure and pain.

I can almost guarantee that I have more cats and cycle more than the (currently) 7 dislikers to my statement.

Firstly the only thing I was commenting on is the paucity of evidence (prospectively) that animal cruelty is a good predictor of later violence.  I know it is said to be- but that doesn't mean it is.

I wasn't making any comment about this man in particular- just (repeating myself somewhat) about the assertions that prospectively animal cruelty is a good predictor of later violence. This man is obviously very odd. He has violated some fairly basic moral values and his behaviour is disgusting.

I don't think the place to look for predictors of violence against humans is in the veterinary literature.  Those papers are not primary research looking at whether or not animal cruelty is a good predictor of later violence and then what sort of violence.

Nor is looking back at the histories of serial killers. For a start there are hardly any at all, there are probably more people researching serial killers in the US than there are serial killers.

Unfortunately ,despite decades of trying, the ability to accurately predict violence is extremely poor. And that is even after looking at massive data sets, various attempts at actuarial risk assessment and SPJ- structured professional judgement tools that have been used now since the 1990's.

Here is some literature about the limits of violence risk assessment.

https://doi.org/10.1192/bjb.2020.14

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22833604

Multiple factors are bad enough at predicting violence- let alone one. I'm not aware of any violence risk assessment tool used in mainstream psychiatry that specifically includes animal cruelty as a 'red flag'- there might be though. I have used lots of them, lots.

People here are saying 'he is obviously mad / mentally ill and needs sectioning'. I think it is fair to say that people will have looked at this already.

What will have happened in this case is probably; 

Review by medic in police custody possibly plus review by a criminal justice mental health (CJLT)  liaison team (who would access his psychiatric notes- if he was known to the local services)- plus possibly a review by a psychiatrist in police custody (maybe not though).

Review by CJLT in court at first appearance (probably) if not done in police custody.

Review by mental health inreach team on remand to prison.

Probably an assessment by a forensic psychiatrist in prison- possibly whilst an inpatient on  the prison health care wing.

Commissioning of pretrial reports by another forensic psychiatrist by the defence (possibly also a psychology report). These may or may not then have been submitted- looking at how it's gone- but not having read more about it I'd suspect not.

Post conviction and pre-sentence; a probation risk assessment (this is ubiquitous) and I'm sure that the judge would again have asked for a presentence report- again by at least one forensic psychiatrist. This would open the door to disposal under the Mental Health Act (sectioning- by the court) with or without a restriction order (added by the judge to limit the powers of the detaning hospital / psychiatrist to grant leave, move from one hospital to another or discharge- the power of discharge would then only be available to either the home Secretary (via the HMPPS- Her Majesty's Prison and Probation MHCS (Mental Health Case Work Section) commonly known as the MoJ- but it isn't anymore) That is s.37/41 of the MHA (1983). If there was doubt about hospital then there could have been up to 1 year of assessment post trial but presentence under s.38 of the MHA (1983). Given that forensic psychiatrists love this sort of high profile case I am quite sure he will have been very extensively scrutinised, there was probably a queue. Although he might not have wanted to say anything- which would result in many unhappy faces.

What will happen now is I suspect;

Serve half sentence then be released on license (this is what happens during the first part of licence you can be recalled to prison, during the last part of licence you can't be recalled to prison- but if you reoffend then you have reoffended during license and that has implications for future sentencing).

In prison- not sure- possibly in a VPU (vulnerable prisoner) maybe not. I don't think he will be popular.

Assorted psychologists will try and see- again this sort of man will attract a queue. There will be lots of 'formulation' as to the origins and meanings of his violence and prognostication about the future-  (dare I say examining the entrails?). I think the best answer however about the future will be "I don't know". Unless there is lots more regards previous history of violence elsewhere- but that would have been extensively reported had there been previous convictions.

At release- I'd guess that he will be seen as a risk of violence (risk is a funny word and nobody really knows what it means- really- in 1992 the Royal Society published an update on Risk to the one published in 1983- the authors of the 1992 report couldn't agree on a definition, especially as to whether risk was objective or subjective- this is a very significant thing. And possibly- actually I think quite likely, important with this man. Whatever the objective risk (likelihood x severity)  the perceived risk (likelihood x severity x outrage) will be very very high-  if anyone is interested Sandeman and also Slovic have published on this a lot It applies to what the general public have to say / think about climbing as well as nuclear power and mad axe men.

This would probably trigger a MAPPA meeting / MAPPA management- Multi Agency Public Protection- involving probation, the police, mental health services, the accommodation provider / approved premises he goes to. (people will watch him in other words).

At the end of the sentence then probation involvement ends and the police may or may not continue with MAPPA as the lead agency.

He'll probably change his name.

Thank you - interesting information. Veterinary literature is the basis of my working life, I admit it is often somewhat 'focused', but it is what I come across.

Cheers- we all know what we know- which is fair enough. I think again that the violence to animals that is brought to the attention of vets will again be a specific subset.

There is also a very great difficulty in deciding on the meaning of words when talking about risk and communicating it.

For example a (scientifically and statistically significant) risk factor might be one that if present in say 10000 individuals who without it might go on (within say 10 years)  to kill one person between them but with it - two. So the risk factor doubles the risk of homicide, sounds serious. But actually not really. Because of the 5000 with the risk factor (which doubles the risk of homicide) - 4999 do not kill anyone. It is this sort of thing that results in Daily Mail readers getting their knickers in a twist about broccoli and cancer.

Rather oddly maternal smoking is a risk factor for violence in adulthood. Very large sample followed up prospectively for years- the sort of study that does not exist for animal cruelty. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/204803 Actually it doubled the lifetime risk of adult violent crime. They analysed to take into account other confounders- such as socioeconomic, psychiatric or paternal criminality (others also).