Stop donating to the RSPCA, says Clarissa Dickson Wright.

The charity has “lost its way” and now “leaves a bitter taste in the mouth” as it pursues prosecutions against people they suspect of animal cruelty, the star of Two Fat Ladies said.

Her comments follow the refusal of the Archbishop of Canterbury to take up the role of vice-patron and add to the deepening row over whether the charity, which is funded by donations, has become too politicised.

People should stop donating until the charity returns to helping domestic animals, she said, adding: “They have got plenty of money.

“I think that it would do them no harm if people stopped donating and told them why they had stopped to see if they changed their threatening policies.”

There have been calls for the RSPCA to be stripped of its prosecutor role following allegations, which it denies, that it has increased the number of cases brought to court in order to boost fundraising.
In the past two years the number of convictions has almost doubled, despite no rise in complaints to the charity's animal cruelty telephone hotline.

Dickson Wright, a former barrister who in 2009 was convicted of attending an illegal hare-coursing after a private prosecution by an animal charity, said that money given in good faith to the RSPCA was being spent in the wrong way.

“The charity was set up, and very well set up, for the protection of domestic animals,” she said.

“Now they spend money that comes from people who in many cases are hard pushed to come up with it, old ladies and things like that, in prosecuting hunts, prosecuting people who they think are trapping foxes, people who are keeping out rabbits.

“They are not concentrating on what they should be doing, on what they do well. It has been taken over by the politicos at the top.”

Dickson Wright, who said that foxes are “essentially vermin” and rabbits are responsible for the majority of landslides, added: “I think they set out to do good and they should get back to what they are supposed to be doing.”

A champion of country sports, she knows people who have been refused rescue animals because they support hunting, and respectable men who have had their doors knocked down by the police at 4am on the say so of the charity, she claims.

The cook, who once received death threats from animal rights campaigners, added that former donors have written to her expressing their disillusion with the RSPCA.

“I got endless correspondence from little old ladies,” she said. "They told me that they had known idea that this is what they were using their money for, rather than rescuing donkeys or saving dogs, and they wouldn’t have wanted them to use it in this way.”

The RSPCA deny that they are becoming politicised, and say that they have been prosecuting people for cruelty to animals since they were established in 1824.

"On a daily basis, our inspectors see unimaginable cruelty to animals across the country. In the vast majority of cases they provide advice and guidance but in a tiny minority of cases - less than 2 per cent of the complaints of cruelty dealt with by them - legal action is necessary," a spokesperson said.

"Our inspectors receive the overwhelming support of the public for this work. To suggest these hard-working officers are pursuing a political agenda is frankly offensive to the work they are undertaking."

Dickson Wright's comments were supported by the Countryside Alliance, who claim that the animal welfare organisation has become, under its current leadership, "a political campaigning organisation with a militant animal rights agenda which is using the prosecuting system as a weapon to promote its political campaigns"

Executive chairman Barney White-Spunner added: “It is wasting hundreds of thousands of pounds a year on political prosecutions and campaigns which do little, if anything, to improve animal welfare. I am sure those people who donate or leave legacies to the RSPCA don’t expect their money to be wasted on playing political games.

“People should consider whether their money would be better used by other animal charities or even the RSPCA’s local branches which are self-funding, separate charities that continue to focus on their role in rescuing neglected and abandoned animals.”