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If the RSPCA can prosecute you, why shouldn't it take Freedom of Information requests?

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If the RSPCA can prosecute you, why shouldn't it take Freedom of Information requests? Empty If the RSPCA can prosecute you, why shouldn't it take Freedom of Information requests?

Post  Admin Thu Sep 18, 2014 11:19 am

By Melissa Kite.


After a rush of blood to the head, I decided it might be a good idea to ask some awkward questions of the RSPCA. Oh no, I hear you cry. What fresh hell is this?

Let me explain. I found out that the charity is pretty much closed to any kind of scrutiny. Unlike other powerful organisations, the police or government bodies, the RSPCA is immune to Freedom of Information requests.

This would be fine if it were just handing out free veterinary care, but, as we know, it isn’t. The charity can investigate and prosecute a little old lady for failing to spot that her cat has a tumour, but neither I nor anyone else looking into why the RSPCA wants to do this, can investigate very far into them.

They can use covert surveillance but, unlike the police, are not subject to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. If they make a mistake, they are not held accountable by any independent inspectorate.

If they succeed in convicting an old lady for animal neglect, they can force her to pay their costs. But if the old lady proves them wrong, her costs will usually come out of the taxpayer’s pocket, not theirs.

I can ring their press office and say, ‘Please tell me what has happened to the review of your prosecutions policy due Spring 2014,’ and they can say, ‘We will publish it when we are ready.’ And I have to say, ‘Thank you very much. Happy prosecuting. Enjoy using the police database.’

Only I don’t say that, do I? Because when I find out I can’t FOI the RSPCA — is this starting to sound like a Tammy Wynette song? — it taps into that same streak of pigheadedness that makes me pursue arduous relationships with ineligible men to the gates of insanity.
I asked around and found that the only way I can even vaguely hold them to account is to put in a Subject Access Request, which requires them to give me any information they might be holding on me. So I did. But once I put in my SAR things really went OTT. Their chief legal officer called me to say he couldn’t comply unless I gave him my home address. I was not sure I wanted to, I told him. And anyway, why was that necessary?

There followed a long discussion about how they couldn’t possibly know which Melissa Kite they were dealing with unless I told them where I lived. Even though they had a copy of my passport, my email, my office address and a mobile number that I had just answered when they rang it, they couldn’t identify me. Because there might be another Melissa Kite.

There are two other ones, in fact. There’s an actress called Melissa Kite in America. An internet search reveals she played the Sour Faced Woman in season three of House. Maybe therein lies the confusion, because I can be quite sour-faced. The other other Melissa Kite is the author Melissa D Kite. I’m glad she’s gone with the D, because if she hadn’t I would have had to go with the L and then everyone would have said ‘Ooh, what does the L stand for?’ And I would have had to say ‘Louise’ and everyone would have said, ‘Oh. That’s a boring middle name.’




Anyway, Melissa D Kite (Druscilla? Dakota?) is a novelist who has written a book called What Dreams May Come: Kara’s Journey. The blurb says the heroine has dreamed of love for years but ‘each night when work is over she goes home to an empty apartment, fixes a meal for just her, and then spends a night alone’.

This sounds a lot like a character I might write, basing it on myself. So maybe the difference between Melissa No L Kite and Melissa D Kite isn’t that great. But then again, is all of this really a good enough excuse for the RSPCA to demand my home address?

Their legal officer explains that no matter how high up I come on a Google search it doesn’t help, because there might be several other Melissa Kites… ‘in our animal cruelty files’.

So I say: how about you search your files for anything pertaining to your view of recent articles produced by the Melissa Kite who writes for The Spectator but ignore all mentions of other Melissa Kites who are being pursued by you for animal cruelty because those ones — such as they exist — won’t be me.
Fine, he says.
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If the RSPCA can prosecute you, why shouldn't it take Freedom of Information requests? Empty The RSPCA Can Prosecute You, Why Shouldn't It Take FOI Requests??

Post  Trilby Bee Sat Sep 20, 2014 2:02 pm

In a word because, for some reason they are above the law, it would seem. I really like the way this lady has written the article, very factual but also very amusing and dry; and yes, what did happen to the results of their much-heralded ''independent review''? About four months late already? My guess is that it painted them in such a bad light that they're having a cat's arse of a job trying to find something which they want the public to see. I also thought it odd that G Grant disappeared at the same time (ish). Was it a case of getting out before he was kicked out? He had only been there a couple of years I seem to recall, and was on a salary 40% higher than his predecessor; for this reason, really great things were expected of him...and all they got was the public outcry over the Heythrop case where the Judge described the costs as ''f***ing staggering   -  or was it ''spectacular''?  He dropped them deeper in the shit than they already were.
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