CATastrophe!

haydonwynter

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peter_the_piper

What an interesting post.

mattyprice4004

Original post:

Would you believe a debate about a cat with a few police officers made me think police officers are sleepwalking into privatisation? I never gave it much thought before, but upon reflection it seems police officers follow a path of being told what to think and have not really been taught how to think.

Whilst discussing the Road Traffic Act an officers stated that ‘You can't own a cat, in law, they are defined as wild animals and have no owner’, clearly a ‘pseudo fact’, an easy mistake to make. Even without Animal Welfare legislation, Cats are regarded in Law as the ‘property’ of their owner and are afforded protection contrary to the Theft Act 1968 and because a cat is regarded as property is also an offence under the Criminal Damage Act 1971 to cause unlawful injury or death to them……………….is pretty much my response :P

I don't know why I, a mere mortal though the police needed to know this information and after my atmospheric Rodney King BeatDown, I should have simply learned my lesson. ’ last time I checked property must be owned in order for it to be stolen, obviously a cat has an owner’.

Another officer said ‘Dogs have owners, this is why if you run over a dog you have to report it to the police, whereas with a cat you don't’’ because Cats’ are not included in the definition of ‘Animals’ whereas a ‘Dog is’

I asked ‘could it have been an oversight that Cats were omitted’ and I was told sarcastically that ‘Cat is only a 3 letter word and if it was meant to be included, it would have been’.

Now this could just be me, but for some strange reason I believed the law is not absolute, the rules and conventions that regulate society are not so smooth, didn't Common Law introduced the principles of precedents and interpretation, thus laws are questionable, open to interpretation and require rational solutions to be applied.

‘You What?’

In Smith v Hughes [1960] the street Offences Act made it an offence to solicit in a ‘public place’. However, the prostitutes were still found guilty of soliciting from ‘private premises’ in spite of ‘private premises’ being omitted from the Act (much like the cat from the RTA). The judge applied the mischief rule finding the defendants guilty and held that ‘their activities were within the mischief of the Act’ i.e. parliament intended to stop prostitution regardless of its location.

Under a literal interpretation they would be in a ‘private place’ and would not have committed an offence. ‘Public’ and ‘Private’ are as different as ‘Dog’ and ‘Cat’ and rationally thinking the Cat’s omission from the RT Act does not necessarily mean parliament intended for the Act to disregard Cats. Using the police officers attitude to the RTA’s logic, the arrest of Smith v Hughes [1960] would never have taken place, as their interpretation of the law is so literal an arrest would have been impossible. However, the judge used the ‘mischief interpretation ‘to avoid an absurdity within the law.

The case of DPP v Cheeseman [1990] also highlights the absurdity of the officers’ literal application. The defendant was prosecuted contrary to the ‘Town & Country Planning Act 1847’ under S.28 for the offence of 'wilfully and indecently exposing the person in a street to the annoyance of passengers', for exposing himself in some public toilets. There had been complaints of him doing this previously. Therefore, officers were stationed at the site. However, much like the officers' with the RTA, the judge interpreted the act literally and ruled the officers stationed there, they were not considered to be ‘passers-by’. As they were not considered as passers-by, Cheeseman had not committed an offence.

Today this is classed as an absurd result, because the Act was intended to stop the behaviour of the defendant regardless of who it is in front of. Much like the street Offences Act was to stop prostitution. However, I found that when I challenged the literal thinking officers application of Cats and the RTA via logic and argument, I was met with frustration and attitudes that tried to stun debate.

Regardless of how people feel about cats in this day and age of animal protection legislation, the literal thinking applied to the RTA regarding cats is absurd.

The literal thinking also seems to make people think just because they don't have to report hitting a Cat to the police, they also do not have to stop and check for injury and suffering which is tantamount to Animal cruelty.

Anyway according to Authoritarian, single minded, out of touch, matter of fact, militaristic minority that serve and protect the majority……I am still wrong, but since the law has a diversity and profound impact on society why are some police failing to apply common sense in conjunction with the law? Unlike the police of 20 years ago, many seem to lack the nerve to think outside the box in terms of what constitutes a criminal offence and apply to law what actually offends the collective conscience.

If they can give this impression over a debate about a cat, who would really want to defend a segregated and out of touch force when full privatisation comes knocking in the future?

haydonwynter

mattyprice4004 wrote: »

Original post:

HAHA, No way!, I tried to delete this because I did not want to sound rude as I posted it half asleep in the dead of night. I completely forgot about this and stumbled on it tonight by accident searching for something else on Google.

Ah well, gave me a chuckle!

Thanks :rotfl:

Johno100

If you don't want your cat to be run over then keep it under control. "Oh but cats run wild, its in their nature", then they are going to die on the roads, seems quite a simple equation.