Family slam ‘lies’ of RSPCA after cat is put down.

Speaking from his home in Tring, Hertfordshire, last night Richard said: “The BBC had invited me and the RSPCA’s press representative to speak about what had happened, and I was absolutely dumbfounded when he began to say things that just weren’t true.”
The claims were posted on the RSCPA’s website and repeated during interviews on BBC Radio 2 and Radio 4.
Last night Richard, 53, added: “It’s true that Claude’s fur was long and that it could get matted. We loved Claude very much and tried for years to keep his fur under control. Even our vet was forced to anaesthetise him before trimming him.
“We went through the anguish of seeing Claude put down and then the unbelievable prospect of finding ourselves faced with a court trial, until the CPS stepped in and sorted things out. That should have been the end of it.
“But the RSPCA had other ideas. It decided to lie and spin to try to justify its over-zealous actions against decent and honest, animal loving people.”
He added: “Absolutely the most outrageous lie was that the RSPCA allowed us 24 hours for our children to say goodbye. We asked the Inspector if we could take Claude home for one last night with the family, which was refused.
"I was at work in London and could not get back until 7pm. But we knew the vet was open until 8 so we rushed over. We were told the RSCPA had left instructions not to give us any access. We asked if euthanasia could be deferred to 4pm the next day so we could bring our children along after school to say good-bye, and this was also refused, despite the fact that the vet was willing to consider this.
“Telling everyone they’d compassionately given us an extra 24 hours so that our family could say their farewells is a disgraceful lie and only makes the suffering we’ve experienced a hundred times worse. Our children were absolutely distraught. The least they can do is to apologise.
“This is supposed to be a compassionate charity, but clearly it has its own agenda. We will always be animal lovers but will support other charities in the future, charities which spend their contributions on animals and not lawyers.”
Responding to Mr Byrnes’ concerns the RSPCA’s chief legal officer, Ray Goodfellow, acknowledged that “errors’ had been made but added: “The RSPCA is not an uncaring organisation”.
Last night an RSPCA spokesman said: “The RSPCA has always made it clear that where we can learn lessons we will.  
“We acted in the best interests of the cat which was suffering and indeed  the CPS agreed with us  that there was sufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction as its needs were not being met.
However Sara-Lise Howe, the barrister acting for the family, said: “There was no proof Claude was suffering; even the RSPCA Inspector who took Claude away said he was alert and active and showed no signs of being in pain.
“It’s a real concern to the public that such a high profile organisation as the RSPCA should feel entitled to ignore the CPS decision that a prosecution should not have been brought, and instead issue statements to the press which are provably false and suggest that the family are guilty of criminal conduct."

Saw this, and really, everywhere you look now people are criticising the shysters. But they are like a dog with a bone once they get their fangs into someone. Regardless of the CPS decision, and of course regardless of costs, they had to keep at it.  The words 'bright and alert' are familiar to me as the bitch who stole my mare, on her STATEMENT wrote: 'The mare was bright and alert and grazing'  - but despite this they had to ''remove her to a place of safety'' after stealing  her (which is effectively what they did as they did not have the passport required by law when transporting a horse) and hang on to her for seven months before moving her a second time illegally without passport to WHW who promptly murdered her. But yes, the lies are quite staggering, both they and WHW who issued a press release to say that she would be rehabilitated and rehomed but she never showed on their rehoming website which was when I checked the  (now obsolete) National Equine Database. and discovered they had killed her.  
Feel so sorry for this family, but some good may come of this affair (small consolation) insofar as it has had a lot of publicity (deliberately by the dad) showing the shysters up for what they are.
Strange they have not yet replaced smug Grant, nor have they (to my knowledge) released any details from the results of the independent review. Maybe the results are really too bad to be made public?? Ooooh, I do hope so!!