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LEAK REVEALS NEW SPLIT IN RSPCA RANKS
(Cutting Sunday Times June 17th 2001 by David Leppard) Thanks Clarissa
THE RSPCA, the world's largest animal welfare charity, is split over a leading member's alleged serious misconduct.
More than 100 pages of documents from its ruling council, many marked "highly confidential" but seen by The Sunday Times, show how the charity -which received more than£ 66m in donations last year -spent thousands of pounds investigating a senior member.
The leaked dossier accuses David Mawson, a vegetarian chef elected to the ruling council two years ago, of a string of actions that it says brought the society into disrepute.
Mawson is said to have called fellow RSPCA council members "animal abusers" when they failed to condemn the Queen -the charity's patron -after she was photographed wringing the neck of a wounded pheasant.
He is alleged to have urged animal rights activists to "smash" a countryside campaigners' tented camp outside the House of Commons.
Another claim is that he compromised the charity's reputation for integrity by disclosing details of a confidential inquiry into animal cruelty. The leak follows last week's expulsion of Richard Meade, the three-day event rider and triple Olympic Gold medal winner, who was accused of spearheading a campaign to infiltrate the RSPCA with hundreds of hunting supporters.
Although a legal opinion advises that Mawson was guilty of "grave misconduct", the council failed by one vote to gain the two-thirds majority needed to suspend him.
The charity spent nearly £40,000 on the inquiry, including £3,560 on tracking e-mails in which he called countryside campaigners "scum" and made false allegations against Ben Gill, leader of the National Farmers' Union, and Richard Burge of the Countryside Alliance.
Other alleged attacks on RSPCA colleagues prompted Peter Davies, the charity's director-general, to write: "For you to say that none of my staff cares about animals and that we employ animal abusers is outrageous and deeply hurtful to my dedicated staff."
Mawson denied making the comments and last week said he was unaware of any disciplinary action.
Since 1996 the charity has been a battleground between animal rights activists and hunt supporters. Its stance on fox hunting see-sawed as opposing factions marshalled support for key votes, and it has spent thousands of pounds seeking permission from the courts to expel dissident members.
The Charity Commission banned several of its pamphlets and ordered it to halt plans to campaign against live animal experiments that could be of benefit to humanity.
Some militants tried to remove the Queen as patron, questioning whether she had ever made a donation.
The latest leak will worry the charity. In a confidential document last month, Dr Tony Suckling, the deputy director-general, lamented the number of leaks. Last night Malcolm Phipps, chairman of the RSPCA's council, would confirm only that Mawson's conduct had been considered "very carefully"./cutting ends
What an outrageous misuse of money donated for the benefit of animals £40,000 +£3,600