1994
Everything changed when I got a call from a journalist, Dominic Nutt, who wanted to speak to me about the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991. Frankly, I didn’t have a clue about it. Wasn’t it something about pit bulls?????? What I found out very quickly was that for some offences, the only outcome for the dog was destruction as it was a MANDATORY order for any of the following:-
1. Having possession of a non exempted Pit Bull Terrier type
2. Breaching the conditions for an exempted Pit Bull Terrier type
3. Being the owner (or person in charge) of any dog that was dangerously out of control in
a public place (or a non public place where the dog wasn’t permitted to be) which injured a person
Over the following 24 years (nearly a quarter of a century!) I’ve done countless cases – guilty pleas, trials and appeals, involving each of these kinds of cases. I also developed an expert knowledge of other dog cases – initially the Dogs Act 1871 & the Dogs (Protection of Livestock) Act 1953, and subsequently civil cases, (eg. ownership disputes and claims between buyers and sellers) then going on to advising rescues and providing lectures & seminars for dog owners and professionals.
I can’t specify each and every case as it would take way too long. But some cases have been especially memorable and I list some of them below as they catalogue a particular part of history – a time when it appeared that dogs were no longer regarded as man’s best friend.
SAABA
This was my first major dog case and it came completely out of the blue. The owners had attended at Medway Magistrates Court without representation and pleaded guilty to an aggravated Section 3 Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 charge. They had been unaware that by doing so the Court had no alternative other than to impose a destruction order. I was alerted to this case by a journalist friend, Dominic Nutt, who had been in Court when the order was made. He was surprised that the dog had to be put down. So was I. It didn’t take long for me to realise that some charges under the DDA led to compulsory destruction.
I lodged an appeal against conviction at Canterbury Crown Court on the grounds that the guilty plea had been equivocal. In the meantime, a massive campaign was launched to show the public that Saaba was in fact a family pet which did not deserve to die.
I was put in touch with Jane Lillywhite, a lady who was very much a part of the ‘dog world’, as someone who may be able to organise a campaign. Thousands of people signed a petition and Saaba made an appearance at numerous fetes, dog shows (see picture below of me at one of the events) and Saaba also became a TV sensation by appearing on the Big Breakfast on Channel 4 with Chris Evans as well as This Morning on ITV with Richard & Judy. Personalities including script writer, Carla Lane OBE (Bread, Butterflies & The Liver Birds) and Jilly Cooper (author) pledged their support.
SAABA
21st March 1995
Glowing reference from Carla Lane OBE. I wish I could remember why Carla wrote this letter! She once described me as ‘the bone in a waist coat’……That is marginally better than other people’s description of me : ‘Frankie Howerd’s lovechild’, ‘it was like watching Julian Clary in a suit’, ‘he reminded me of a childhood trip to the Bradford Alhambra when I saw Ken Dodd’……..
Dempsey
I was introduced to Dianne Fanneran by Carla Lane before the Saaba case had been completed. It appeared hopeless. Dempsey was an exempted pit bull terrier type dog and by the time I was asked to look at the case the dog was already on a destruction order because one of the conditions of the exemption had been breached and an appeal had already been lost at the High Court.
The facts are that one day, Dempsey was being walked by a friend of the family, Mark Cichon, and he removed Dempsey’s muzzle. This was observed by a Police Officer. Dempsey was not seized. Mr. Cichon was subsequently summonsed to appear in Court for allowing Dempsey to be in a public place unmuzzled and off lead and he pleaded guilty. That led to the mandatory destruction of the dog. Mrs. Fanneran had not even been told that the hearing was taking place and so it was a complete shock to her when she found out. Prior to my involvement in the case, Mr. Cichon had appealed on the grounds that he claimed to have a defence of necessity but the Court ruled that no such defence exists to a Section 1 charge. How could such a dog be saved?
30th November 1994
Law Society Gazette
This is the very first article that featured me for the dog cases that I was doing. https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/a-man-about-a-dog-a-look-at-niche-areas-of-work-dangerous-dogs-/19772.articleSAABA Part 2
As a very sad post script to this case the press reported on the 16th May 1995 that Saaba had gone on to bite a someone else and was put down by the family.1995
THE DANGEROUS DOGS ACT 1991 REFORM GROUP
I received a phone call from Sara Tuppen (now Ross) who at the time was the PA to Lord Douglas Houghton of Sowerby and was invited to his London flat for tea. He invited me to join the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 Reform Group, which consisted of politicians (including Sir Roger Gale & Sir Andrew Bowden), some peers (including the Baroness Ziki Wharton) and many of the leading animal welfare organisations of the day (including the National Canine Defence League – now known as Dogs Trust). I subsequently attended at all the group’s meetings to help plan and promote change to the law. Sadly, Lord Houghton died before the law was changed.9th April 1995
The Sunday Telegraph
This was the first major article featuring me in a national newspaper.
“He is the pet’s saviour, Saint Francis of Assisi of the law courts, defender of dogs.”
21st August 1995
LUCY
This wasn’t a case that went to Court, but it captured press attention for a few days. This involved a bull terrier owned by Lisa O’Brien called Lucy which killed a neighbour’s cat. The police seized the dog (!) but returned it 3 days later without charge.
24th August 1995 - The Daily Mail
24th August 1995 - The Daily Star (Page 13)
DEMPSEY part 2
The coverage of the press on the Dempsey case continued….and it continued to be very positive. This led to an incredible front page story in the Daily Mail together with a damning opinion comment. The tide appeared to have turned and many in the press were now on side. It seemed that it might be possible to get the law changed. But would it actually happen and would we be able to save Dempsey from destruction?
7th September 1995 - The Daily Mail (Front Page)
“The Act is costing a fortune to enforce, wasting valuable police time and causing untold anguish… it points up, yet again, the need for better considered and better drafted legislation.”
22nd November 1995 – This was the date of the Judicial Review at the High Court in London. The public gallery was packed for this ruling – it was very much Dempsey’s last chance. Sandy Canavan and I were there and we were hoping for the best but not exactly confident of success. It looked pretty hopeless.
The Judges ruled that there had been a breach of natural justice because Mrs Fanneran hadn’t been given an opportunity to be heard when the case was initially heard against Mr Cichon and so the destruction order was overturned.
Lord Justice Staughton :
“We must hesitate long and hard before we uphold a conviction when the appropriate steps required by natural justice have not been taken….I would limit the relief granted to quashing the destruction order”
Mr Justice Rougier said:-
“It seems to me that the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 bears all the hallmarks of an ill-thought-out piece of legislation, no doubt in hasty response to yet another strident pressure group. Add to that the foolish nephew, an observant and zealous policeman and the result is that a perfectly inoffensive animal has to be sent to the gas chamber, or whatever method of execution is favoured, its only crime being to have a cough. It would take the pen of Voltaire to do justice to such a ludicrous situation”
The outcome of this Judicial Review on Dempsey was outstanding. In my opinion this lent considerable weight to the argument, as put forward by the Reform Group, that Parliament needed to look again at the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991.
I spoke to Brigitte Bardot’s lawyer to tell him the outcome of the case. He was Francois Kelidjian, based in Paris, and he looked a bit like Sacha Distel. He got back to me with the message from Brigitte Bardot that she would like to invite me to France so she could give me a kiss. Despite this kind offer I never went – though I would meet her in person a few years later (see below…).
I don’t claim to have single handedly caused the law to change, but I do think that I played my part in getting some justice for dogs as I was able to highlight from the cases I was doing just how harsh the law was. Far too many dogs had been mandatorily destroyed since 1991 and it was looking as if we might be getting somewhere, but even so, it would still be another 2 years before the law was changed.
Daily Mail (Page 7)
25th November 1995 Daily Express (Page 13)
Daily Telegraph (Page 18)
December 1995 The pic to the left was at a party I hosted at the Scandic Crown Hotel, London (now I believe it’s called the DoubleTree by Hilton London – Victoria). From L to R is Dianne Fanneran, Dempsey, Carla Lane, me and Lynsey de Paul (singer-songwriter).
I was shortlisted for a Willing and Giving award for helping the “cause of companion animals to an extraordinary degree over the past year”. I didn’t win but it was nice to have been nominated. A combination of an awful haircut and the Dierdre Barlow glasses may have counted against me
March 1996 - Dogs Today
“Trevor laughs when asked whether he’s bordering on sainthood.” “I am a saint in training” He chortles.” “It’s amazing that he continues to fight the DDA in the face of poverty, criticism, and at the expense of a social life. With the likes of Dianne Fanneran and Dempsey now being able to get on with their lives thanks to Trevor, it is a good job he does.”
17th April 1996
I gave evidence to the Home Affairs Committee at the House of Commons on behalf of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 Reform Group
1996 - Dog World
I had decided that the time had come to leave Sharratts and this newspaper wrote some very lovely things about me and the work I had been doing. At the time I had thought that I may have to completely give up doing “dog work” but in reality the cases kept on coming. Just look at the middle parting – aaaargh.
“Solicitor Trevor Cooper is the country’s most famous canine solicitor”
“He is unassuming and modest, despite being equipped with a razor sharp legal mind and enormous determination”
“He has no life of his own and lives the lives of his clients”
“He provides a glimmer of hope, the light at the end of the tunnel for people who’s pet has been taken away by the police”
September 1996
Leaving party from Sharratts at the Chaucer Hotel, Canterbury. The pic is of me with Juliette Glass who was the founder of’ from the Fury Defence Fund. Juliette (and her late husband John) campaigned tirelessly and were always there to provide support to dog owners (+ to me).
4th December 1996
The Home Affairs Committee reported to the House of Commons on the ‘Operation of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991’ drawing on the oral and written evidence they had considered. They recommended, inter alia, that the mandatory destruction orders for aggravated Section 3 offences and for Section 1 offences should be lifted. This was of course a major step forward. The Reform Group continued to keep up the pressure on the politicians to drive these proposals forward.
5th February 1997 - The Lawyer
“… in UK canine circles Cooper’s name is legendary” “Cooper’s reputation in the canine world is unsurpassed. He is an acknowledged expert on dog law, lectures on the subject, sits on the Dangerous Dogs Act Reform Group and has given evidence to parliamentary groups on this subject” “He has probably saved more dogs from ‘Death Row’ than any other lawyer and is the hero of dog lovers everywhere” “A dog’s best friend is his lawyer”
5th February 1997 – Our Dogs
“He does something that no normal solicitor does, he gets personally involved, he feels the pain of others, he suffers when his clients dog is killed by an indifferent judiciary.”
“We respect him for the brave man he is, a man who fought for justice regardless of the damage to his career and personal life, he’s been like a lighthouse in the raging storm of hatred.”
17th March 1997 - Cooper & Co Established!
The pic below is of Fred (Hedley Wethered) who was and still is the Cooper & Co book-keeper. He’s worked with me for 20 years and he just about works out the various receipts I thrust at him.
Date unknown – I don’t remember which case this was but judging by the people in the pic it must have been a Section 1 DDA trial (I did plenty in those days). I’m pictured outside Court with Lorraine Baksh, Juliette Glass, Trevor Turner, Janet Payne and Alec Waters. Everyone is smiling so I’m guessing that we had a good result.
THE RAFIQ CASE
22nd April 1997 – I wish Mr Rafiq’s dog hadn’t been given such an awful name – calling a dog Venom is never a good idea! Vernon would have been much nicer…
This case was very harsh and really showed how strict the law was for a dog that had bitten someone. The incident had taken place on 23rd December 1995 when Venom bit the victim causing a single puncture wound to her thigh. At Crown Court a destruction order was imposed and I was instructed to appeal. The grounds we used were that the victim had been unaware of the presence of the dog until it bit her – and so we said that there could not have been grounds for reasonable apprehension of injury ie. how can you fear something that you don’t know could happen.
At the High Court the Judges ruled that even if the victim had been unaware of the dog’s presence prior to the bite, the Court could still infer that there were grounds for reasonable apprehension that the dog would injure a person from the bite itself. [NB This takes a bit of re-reading to understand how we lost this case…]
This was the ruling of the High Court and this is still binding case-law today. It meant that even though it was a very minor injury that the Court had no alternative other than to order the destruction of the dog.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/case-summaries-28-april-1997-1269863.html
The Barrister for this case was Tania Panagiotopoulo.
The Daily Mail did a news story on this case:-
“The Dangerous Dogs Act is worse than some of the directives which have come out of Europe.”
“Dubbing the Act ‘a piece of Delphic legislation’ he paid tribute to the dog’s owner Karim Rafiq… the judge said his hands were tied by the law.”
We tried to appeal this ruling to the House of Lords but were refused leave.
8th June 1997 – the Dangerous Dogs (Amendment) Act 1997 came into force, giving Magistrates discretion not to impose a destruction order (in either Section 1 or Section 3 cases) if it could be proven that the dog would not constitute a danger to public safety.
Venom was still alive when the Amendment Act came into force so we were able to have the case remitted to the Crown Court. The Judge repealed the destruction order and replaced it with a Contingent Destruction Order. This would have been one of the very first cases under the amended law when destruction was no longer mandatory and it showed that when Courts have an element of discretion they will use it. Dogs would no longer have to be destroyed provided it could be proven they would not constitute a danger to public safety. That might well sound harsh, but compared with how things had stood between 1991 and 1997 it was an amazing turnaround.
August 1998
BBQ at Juliette Glass’s house. On the left is Christine Crichton and next to her is Dr Roger Mugford.
WOOFIE
The Woofie case involved a non-aggravated Section 3 Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 case regarding a collie cross called Woofie (aka Wolfie) owned by Anne & Terry Swankie. As it was non aggravated it meant that there was no presumption in favour of destruction but, despite this, the Sherriff had imposed it.
It was a Scottish case but the family could not find any lawyer in that jurisdiction prepared to help them. I knew nothing about the Scottish procedure and so had to do a lot of quick reading to find out how to progress an appeal.
The appeal had to be done straight from the Sheriffs Court to the High Court in Edinburgh and I briefed Gordon Jackson QC to do the advocacy (as he is qualified on both sides of the border).
The case became a cause celebre in Scotland. I once again enlisted the support of Brigitte Bardot and the various newspapers obtained quotes from several other well known celebrities (including Whoopi Goldberg…)
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/12341928.Woofie_bounds_out_of_court_a_free_mutt/
Brigitte Bardot came to Scotland for the hearing. I seem to recall that she came in a private jet and she had a photographer with her to take pictures for OK magazine. The night before the hearing I went with the Swankies & Woofie to meet with Brigitte at her hotel. She was utterly charming and spent most of the evening playing with Woofie. I never got my kiss…..
21st November 1998
The Scottish Sun (Front Page)
The Scottish Daily Record (Front Page)
The Daily Telegraph (Front Page)
The Times (Front Page)
The Scottish Express (Front Page)
The Scotsman (Page 3)
The Sun
