2000s

February 2000 – Dogs Today

“There are few people who make it to the very top of their profession; let alone become a household name. Yet for anyone who has ever found themselves in legal trouble because of their dog, the only name that comes to mind for help is solicitor Trevor Cooper.”

“Despite Trevor being the only solicitor in the country who exclusively specialises in dog law, and having the most incredible record of saving dogs who have been unjustly tried, none of the major dog charities give him any financial support at all.”

“I have been described in the legal press as the pro bono champion for dogs.”

“Hopefully there will come a time when I will be able to settle down and live a normal life. Who wants to be normal though?”

DINO

This was perhaps the longest running case that I’ve dealt with (so far!). Dino was owned by Bryan Lamont which bit a lady who intervened whilst Dino was having a scrap with her dog. At Magistrates Court a destruction order was imposed. I lodged an appeal against that order which was heard at Northampton Crown Court and the Barrister was Mr. Shiraz Rustom. Unfortunately, the destruction order was upheld.

We decided not to stop there. The High Court had stated that there was a point of law of general public importance. They had refused to grant leave to appeal to the House of Lords but with the assistance of Miss. Pamela Rose and Lord Tony Gifford QC an application was submitted direct. Unfortunately, they refused to hear the case.

RICKSON

DINO Part 2

As all possible avenues of appeal domestically had now been well and truly exhausted, the only thing left to try was an application to the European Court of Human Rights. The Barrister for this part of the case was Keir Starmer QC (who went on to become the Director of Public Prosecutions, The Head of the Crown Prosecution Service and is now The Right Honourable Sir Keir Starmer MP the Shadow Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union). I wonder if he remembers the part he played in the Dino case???

8th Dec 2002 – I was given an award by Pro Dogs (presented by National Treasure DJ David ‘Diddy’ Hamilton) for having made “an outstanding contribution to the world of dogs”

2003 Shufflebottom: This was a case under the Dogs Act 1871. The client lived in the Stockport area but what made the case unusual is that the only incident of the dog acting dangerously took place in Scotland while he was on holiday – which is generally regarded as a foreign jurisdiction for the purposes of England & Wales. We asked the Magistrates’ to state a case for the opinion of the High Court on whether this meant they had jurisdiction to hear the case.

https://high-court-justice.vlex.co.uk/vid/-52634399

The Barrister was Miss Sharon Watson.

The case was remitted to Stockport Magistrates’ Court where they made a Control Order with conditions.

DINO Part 3
The European Court appeal was very quickly dismissed without a hearing by the European Court of Human Rights, so I never got to meet with Keir Starmer – nor did I get a trip to the continent. Was this the end for Dino? No……….
As so much time by then had elapsed since Dino had acted out of character I felt that this, on its own, might be regarded as new and compelling evidence to prove on the civil standard that this dog after all was not a danger to public safety. I therefore submitted a last ditch appeal to the Criminal Cases Review Commission which is the body that investigates miscarriages of justice. After due reflection, they agreed to remit the case back to Northampton Crown Court for a reconsideration of the sentence.

In the event, at the rehearing at the Northampton Crown Court the destruction was (finally) lifted and replaced with a contingent destruction order.

16th October 2004

22nd October 2004 - Dog World (Front Page)

The Times – “Lawyer of the week”

25th November 2004 In the Law Society Gazette they ran an article on the workings of the Criminal Cases Review Commission. Of the 6,441 cases they had reviewed they had only referred 254 to the appeal court and, of those, only 138 cases was the conviction quashed or the sentence varied. The case of Dino was one of the 138.

2005 : This is the year that I thought I ought to do something else and so I made a big move from Kent to Yorkshire and took a job as a prosecutor with the Environment Agency for the North East of England. This led to lovely things being said about me in the dog press – it was a bit like reading your own obituary when you’re alive. But it was very nice to see that I was going to be missed.
I was a Principal Solicitor (working with a great team of lawyers, support staff and investigators) and during the latter part of my time there I was the Team Leader of the prosecutions department. We covered the whole of the north east region (based in Leeds). However, the calls to help with dog cases continued so although I had intended to stop taking on dog cases this never actually happened…..I’ve provided some examples of the kind of cases that I was involved with so you can get an inkling of what I was doing during my new ‘day job’….but I was also continuing to do the dog cases in the evenings and at weekends.

2005 – Our Dogs “Trevor is too modest to admit that it was his efforts that saved hundreds of dog’s lives, and would never make a big thing of the fact that much of his work was pro bono ‘free of charge’ and that he would offer a great deal of free advice to other solicitors as well as their clients.” “It is an enduring legacy that Trevor Cooper took on cases that no other lawyer would touch.” “Since the Dangerous Dogs (Amendment) Act of 1997… he has hardly lost any dogs in cases he has defended, which is a quite brilliant record.” “Never have dog owners owed so much to one man; Trevor Cooper has been the dog’s guardian angel and a light at the end of the tunnel for so many.”

June 2005 – Dogs Trust presented me the Phyllis Mayer Argus Medal at a reception they held at the House of Commons. It was awarded ‘in recognition of long and distinguished service on behalf of dogs’. In the pics are Clive Austin and Chrissie Paphiti from the Dogs Trust legal dept. Chrissie is still there and still looks exactly the same

So, I started to live a double life. Environmental cases during the day and dog cases in the evenings and at weekends.
November 2005 (Environment Case) – Car spares trader fined £8,000 over waste
http://www.examiner.co.uk/news/west-yorkshire-news/car-spares-trader-fined-8000-5062989.amp

January 2006 (Environment Case) – Fly Tipper jailed for 8 months for fly tipping.
http://www.pontefractandcastlefordexpress.co.uk/news/flytipper-is-jailed-1-1219659

April 2006 (Environment Case) – Fridge disposal company fined the maximum of £100,000 for releasing harmful gases.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/south_yorkshire/4952788.stm
March 2006 – I announced at Crufts that I would run an Adviceline for dog related queries during the evenings. Pic below is of me and Robert Killick.

February 2007 (Environment case) – man convicted of operating an unlicensed waste transfer station https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/local-news/waste-at-site-without-licence-3752108

February 2007 – Merseyside Police ran an ‘amnesty’ calling for owners of non-exempted pit bull terrier types to hand their dogs into the Police. This resulted in a number of court cases under Section 4B of the DDA and I was asked to help. No Legal Aid and no time to even get proper instructions so it was a question of just turning up at Court and speaking to anyone who wanted help.

1) For the first batch of cases I briefed barrister Pam Rose who represented 12 dog owners on 27th and 28th February. The Court allowed all of them to be exempted.

2) At the next hearing I did the advocacy and acted for a further 13 dog owners all of whom were allowed to have their dogs exempted.

3) I also did the third batch of cases when a further 11 dogs were allowed to be exempted.

February 2007 (Environment Case) – Man who killed and buried sick greyhounds convicted of unlawful disposal of waste. This was the closest to acting in a dog case while working for the Environment Agency. The case made huge headlines – albeit at Crown Court the offender escaped a custodial sentence.

http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/man-who-killed-and-buried-sick-greyhounds-faces-jail-1-2433897

https://www.ourdogs.co.uk/News/2007/February2007/News230207/greyhound.htm

March 2007 (Environment case) – Court orders a flytipper’s van to be confiscated
http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/flytippers-vehicle-is-confiscated-1488662

November 2007 (Environment case) – company fined for unlawful disposal of asbestos
http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/1830624._Ghost_ships__company_fined_for_breaching_environmental_regulations/
Water company fined £12,000 for turning river purple with untreated sewage

http://www.halifaxcourier.co.uk/news/yorkshire-water-fined-after-river-ran-purple-with-sewage-1-1900885

8th January 2009 – During 2007-8 I trained to become a lay Magistrate on the North Yorkshire bench and was duly made a Justice of the Peace in January 2009

May 2008 – Northumbrian Water fined for serious water pollution
https://www.waterbriefing.org/home/company-news/item/624-northumbrian-water-fined-for-serious-pollution-case

July 2009 (Environment Case) – Two businesses were fined a total of almost £30,000 after only ‘sheer luck’ prevented a fire when waste left in storage drums was crushed without being cleaned

https://www.edie.net/news/5/Crushed-hazardous-waste-drums-could-have-caught-fire/16753/

11th December 2009 – I appeared on the Daily Politics show with Lord Kenneth Baker to discuss Breed Specific Legislation (see video clip below)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/the_daily_politics/8408152.stm

DINO

26th April 2002 - Dog World

RICKSON

DINO Part 2

Sir Keir Starmer KCB QC

16th October 2004

22nd October 2004 - Dog World (Front Page)

October 2004

8th March 2008