The true extent of animal cruelty revealed across Teesside and the North East

An RPSCA investigator has been revealing the true extent of animal cruelty across Teesside and the North East.

It comes just days after Northumbria police discovered the burnt body of a puppy in Newcastle.

Our reporter went out on patrol with RSPCA inspector Nick Jones, who explained Teesside and the North East consistently have the highest levels of animal cruelty statistics of the whole country.

Nick was the inspector who investigated the case of Scamp – the dog buried alive in Redcar after his owner drove a nail through his head. He explains it was one of the worst cases he’s ever worked on.

The case of Scamp, which shocked the region, and that of Baby the bulldog, whose owners filmed themselves throwing and kicking her down a flight of stairs; were the catalyst for Redcar MP Anna Turley to put her new bill Baby’s law before parliament last month.

Baby’s law will petition for tougher sentencing for animal cruelty convictions – up to 5 years. Currently the maximum penalty is just six months, but in many cases, including that of Baby; the perpetrators avoid prison altogether.

However, the bill has yet to be read in Parliament, though Anna is determined to keep fighting for stronger sentences, and plans to bring it back in front of MP’s again later this month.

As our reporter discovered, in many cases the RSPCA are dealing with a huge backlog of cases – ranging from concerned members of the public, who believe people have been mistreating their pets, to abandoned animals left in public.

During the patrol, the team were called out to reports of a horse, locked up in a patch of wasteland alongside the A66, one of the busiest roads on Teesside. The animal had no food, water or shelter – and without being micro-chipped or registered, there was no way of finding out who the horse belonged to.

Nick told us this is a common problem across the region, including County Durham, where he’s heard colleagues report the “Field of Death” where horses are abandoned to die, or are already dead.

The RSPCA are backing Anna Turley’s bill proposals, and as Nick tells us, he hopes it will lead to stronger sentences – as more of a deterrent to mistreating animals.