United Kingdom

The Cockfighting Act, 1952 makes it unlawful to have possession of any instrument or appliance designed or adapted for use in connection with the fighting of a domestic fowl. A person guilty of an offence under this section and shall be liable, on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months, or to a fine not exceeding twenty-five pounds, or to both such imprisonment and such fine.

The Performing Animals Act 1925 requires any person who exhibits or trains any performing (vertebrate) animal to be registered with a local authority. This information is kept in the local register. The law also gives power to local authorities to prohibit animal training or exhibition where it is accompanied by cruelty.  Any officer of a local authority duly authorised in that behalf by the local authority and any constable may inspect performance premises during reasonable hours. Failure to become properly registered or concealing an animal to avoid inspection makes a person guilty of an offence.

Defendant was an exporter of pet birds. He kept birds at a premises in the course of his business. Usually the birds remained on the premises for less than 48 hours before continuing their journey to their purchasers but on occasion birds had remained on the premises for up to 12 days. A magistrates' court acquitted him of keeping a pet shop without a licence (contrary to Pet Animals Act 1951, s.1). Prosecutor appealed. Result: appeal allowed. Held: even though the premises was being used as no more than a holding center, the defendant was carrying on from that premises a business of selling pets and the premises therefore required a pet shop license.

Although a local authority may not adopt a policy of not enforcing certain laws or not enforcing them against certain types of parties, it may nevertheless make rational choices with respect to the use of its enforcement powers in order to deploy its limited resources in the most efficient and effective manner.

A planned event called "The Creepy Crawly Show" was to have been held at a racecourse and to have involved the display and sale of small exotic animals by a number of different breeders, dealers and enthusiasts. The event's organizer applied to the local council for a pet shop licence under the Pet Animals Act 1951. The application was refused on the ground that the event was prohibited by section 2 of the Act which states that a person is guilty of an offence if he "carries on a business of selling animals as pets in any part of a street or public place, [or] at a stall or barrow in a market". The organizer's appeal to the local magistrates court was dismissed. Held: the holding of the event would have involved the carrying on a business of selling pets in a "public place". It would also have involved the selling of animals in a market. The event was therefore prohibited by section 2 and that it would have been unlawful for the local authority to have licensed it.

Section 2 of the Pet Animals Act 1951 states that a person shall be guilty of an offence if he "carries on a business of selling animals as pets in any part of a street or public place, [or] at a stall or barrow in a market". Small transparent cubes containing water and live fish were sold as novelty items, known as 'aquababies', from a barrow in a thoroughfare of a large indoor shopping mall. The Court found that this activity involved the carrying on of a business of selling pets in a "public place" and was therefore prohibited by section 2.

A net was placed over one opening of a land drain and a terrier dog sent into the other entrance with the objective of prompting a fox to run into the net. Magistrates acquitted the defendants of doing an act causing unnecessary suffering to the fox contrary to the Protection of Animals Act 1911, s 1(1)(a). The Divisional Court dismissed the prosecutor's appeal, holding that, applying Rowley v Murphy [1964] 2 QB 43, the fox was not a "captive animal" within the meaning of s 15(c) of the 1911 Act, mere confinement not being sufficient, and was therefore outside the protection of that Act.

Where a person has sent a dog into the earth of a fox or sett of a badger with the result that a confrontation took place between the dog and a wild animal, and the dog experienced suffering, it will be open to the tribunal of fact to find that the dog has been caused unnecessary suffering and that an offence has been committed under section 1(1)(a) of the Protection of Animals Act 1911.

The expression "cruelly ill-treat"" in s 1(1)(a) of the Protection of Animals Act 1911 means to "cause unnecessary suffering" and "applies to a case where a person wilfully causes pain to an animal without justification for so doing". It is sufficient for the prosecution to prove that the animal was caused to suffer unnecessarily, and the prosecution does not have to prove that the defendant knew that his actions were unnecessary.

A farmer who had caused the horns of his cattle to be sawn off, a procedure which had caused great pain, was liable to conviction for cruelty. For an operation causing pain to be justifiable, it had to be carried out in pursuit of a legitimate aim that could not reasonably be attained through less painful means, and the pain inflicted had to be proportionate to the objective sought. The mere fact that the defendant believed that the procedure was necessary did not remove him from liability to conviction if, judged according to the circumstances that he believed to exist, his actions were not objectively justifiable.