Change wildlife crime status and sentencing to help police forces combat high-priority crimes
- Badger Trust Staff Team
- Jul 17, 2024
- 2 min read
Mounting evidence of a correlation between badger baiting and crimes of violence against women and drug gang offences.
Badger Trust continues its campaign to make badger crime notifiable and increase maximum sentences for wildlife crime from six months to five years, in line with domesticated animals.
The charity has called for an urgent meeting with the Home Office to push these issues up the agenda for action.
Change maximum sentences and notifiable status for badger persecution crimes
The Protection of Badgers Act (1992) protects badgers and their setts, but the maximum sentence for violence against badgers is only six months. That means crimes are not classed as ‘notifiable’ and they do not appear in police statistics. Making these crimes notifiable would allow more police attention and show the true nature of the badger persecution problem.
The change in reporting would also highlight the already established link between crimes against badgers and other crimes, such as violence against women and drug gang offences. The National Wildlife Crime Unit reports mounting evidence that people arrested for badger baiting are linked with these other types of crime.
Peter Hambly, Chief Executive of Badger Trust, commented:
“Badger Trust and other animal charities, notably Action for Primates, successfully campaigned to include violence against animals in the Online Safety Bill.
Given the high number of crimes against badgers, we now need stronger action to deter criminals from inflicting pain on badgers and ensure more of them are caught and put away.
Criminal links to high-priority violent crimes, such as violence against women and drug gang activity, make this even more urgent. Changing wildlife crime status and sentencing will help police forces combat high-priority crimes and make a difference for people and badgers.”
Badger Trust Police Training helps achieve successful prosecutions
Badger Trust works closely with the police to achieve successful prosecutions, ensuring every police force in England and Wales has received comprehensive training to identify and deal with badger crime.
Peter Hambly continued:
“Badger baiting and other cruel activity against badgers happens every day in the UK. We need better deterrents and help the police catch more of the criminals involved.
Violence against animals is unacceptable. Badger Trust supports positive action to get these criminals identified and caught. We already support the police through our police training programme and crime data recording, but we need urgent action to stop these thugs.”
