Tough laws across the pond

[dizzy]

Pet shop owner fined £1,000 and told to wear an electronic tag... for selling a GOLDFISH to a boy aged 14

By Jaya Narain
Last updated at 11:42 PM on 30th March 2010



Seven-week curfew: Joan Higgins has to wear an electronic tag
Her offence was to unwittingly sell a goldfish to a 14-year-old boy taking part in a trading standards 'sting'.

At most, pet shop owner Joan Higgins, 66, expected a slap on the wrist for breaking new animal welfare laws which ban the sale of pets to under-16s.

Instead, the great-grandmother was taken to court, fined £1,000, placed under curfew - and ordered to wear an electronic tag for two months.

The punishment is normally handed out to violent thugs and repeat offenders.

The prosecution of Mrs Higgins and her son Mark is estimated to have cost taxpayers £20,000 and has left her with a criminal record.

Mark, 47, was also fined and ordered to carry out 120 hours of unpaid work in the community.

Last night, as an MP criticised the magistrates, Mrs Higgins - who has run the pet shop for 28 years - said the family's eight-month ordeal had left them traumatised.

She added: 'It's ridiculous. I mean, what danger am I that I have to wear an electronic tag? These last few months have been a very stressful time.'

The seven-week curfew imposed by the court means she is unable to babysit her great-grandson at his home or go to bingo sessions with her sister, and will be unable to attend a Rod Stewart concert after tickets were bought for her by her nephew, actor Will Mellor.


Joan Higgins, 66, and her son Mark, 47, have both been ordered to pay fines after selling a goldfish to a 14-year-old boy
Her son said: 'I think it's a farce. What gets me so cross is that they put my Mum on a tag - she's nearly 70, for goodness' sake.

'She's a great-grandma so she won't be able to babysit a newborn baby. You would think they have better things to do with their time and money.'

Mr Higgins claimed the undercover operation was a clear case of entrapment - when a person is encouraged by someone in some official capacity to commit a crime - and said the case should never have gone to court.

He said: 'The council sent the 14-year-old in to us. It is hard to tell how old a lad is these days. He looked much older than 14.'

He added that his mother almost fainted in the dock when magistrates told her she could go to prison for the offence.

'I told her they wouldn't send her to prison but she was still worried,' he said. 'The only other time she has been in court is when she did jury service.'


Majors Pet shop in Sale, Greater Manchester, owned by Joan and Mark Higgins
Under the Animal Welfare Act 2006 it is illegal to sell pets - including goldfish - to children under the age of 16 unless they are accompanied by an adult. Pet shops must also provide advice on animal welfare to buyers.

The maximum penalty is imprisonment for up to 12 months, or a fine of up to £20,000, or both.

The Higgins family's ordeal began when council officials heard that Majors Pet Shop in Sale, Greater Manchester, was selling animals to children.

They sent the 14-year-old schoolboy into the shop to carry out a test purchase and Mr Higgins sold him the goldfish without questioning his age or providing any information about the care of the fish.

A council officer in the shop at the time also noticed a cockatiel in a cage that appeared to be in a poor state of health. A vet found the bird had a broken leg and eye problems. It was later put down.



Mrs Higgins and her son were charged with selling the fish to a person aged under 16 and with causing unnecessary suffering to a cockatiel by failing to provide appropriate care and treatment.

Pleading guilty, Mrs Higgins told Trafford magistrates the cockatiel had not been for sale and she had been bathing its eye daily.

She had intended to take it to the vet but had been distracted and worried because her other son was in hospital.

The court heard that Mrs Higgins had possessed a licence to sell animals for many years and had never had any problems before.

She was fined £1,000 and given a community order with a curfew requiring her to stay home between 6pm and 7am for seven weeks.

Mrs Higgins did not have her licence to sell animals removed, but both she and her son were told that if they ever appeared in court for a similar offence they could face a jail sentence.

David Davies, Tory MP for Monmouth, said: 'You simply couldn't make it up. It is absolutely ludicrous that old ladies should be hounded through the courts and electronically tagged for something like this.


'At a time when courts are being told not to lock up career burglars we have them issuing severe punishments like this on little old ladies.' Mr Davies, who has served as a special constable for three years, said: 'Not only is it traumatic for her but it is a complete waste of time and taxpayers' money. It is ridiculous.

'Instead of getting 14-year-old boys to act in this type of sting they should have them trying to nail people who sell drugs outside our schools.'

Trafford Council said it launched an investigation after an unsubstantiated complaint that the shop had sold a gerbil to a 14-year-old girl with learning disabilities. The council claimed the animal later died after the child placed it in a disposable coffee cup with a plastic lid on top.

But the complaint did not form part of the legal action in court and its truth cannot be verified.

Mrs Higgins said the shop had not stocked gerbils for months before the complaint anyway.

Defending the goldfish case, Iain Veitch, head of public protection at Trafford Council, said: 'The evidence presented for this conviction clearly demonstrates that it is irresponsible to sell animals to those who are not old enough to look after them.

'Let this conviction send out a message that we will not tolerate those who cause unnecessary suffering to animals. The council will always try to support pet and business owners so that they are able to care for their animals properly, but where they continually ignore the advice they are given, we will not hesitate to use our statutory powers.'

The goldfish was later adopted by an animal welfare officer and is in good health.

 

[Anonymous]

Wow... I would not own a petshop in England! 8O 12 months in prison for every guppy that is floating in your shop.

 

[Raskal311]

Things are heading that way in CA :S You would not believe the bs we have been getting.

"The salt creep on the sump is causing stress to the fish; here is a $200 fine”. Errr ok but the tank is spotless sir and the fish can’t see the sump.

I guess the agency that foresee the sales of dogs and cats are look elsewhere for a source of funding as more and more dog and cat shops are closing down.

 

[Anonymous]

I guess the agency that foresee the sales of dogs and cats are look elsewhere for a source of funding as more and more dog and cat shops are closing down.

Which agency would that be given it's dealt with on a local level, not state?

 

[Raskal311]

My vendors have mentioned that they have visited stores in LA and Orange County so it must be state. I’m guessing it’s the local branch that have decided to take it upon them self to expand aquatics.

 

[Raskal311]

One vendor has also mentioned they seem to be targeting smaller stores owned by minorities; I’m looking in to this now.

 

[Anonymous]

My vendors have mentioned that they have visited stores in LA and Orange County so it must be state. I’m guessing it’s the local branch that have decided to take it upon them self to expand aquatics.

OK there is NO state agency that does that. DVM's and animal rights activists have wanted one for years but there is none at the moment.

 

[Raskal311]

It's the Orange County Community Resource Animal Care; I guess LA county has thier own.

 

[Anonymous]

It's the Orange County Community Resource Animal Care; I guess LA county has thier own.

Yup. Like I said, it's a local issue (county issue), not a "state agency". My sister (DVM) is very in touch with the issue of pet stores and cats & dogs being sold there... and how they are, or not, taken care of. This is why you see counties passing laws on animal care within pet stores and not on our state ballot.

 

[dizzy]

If the heat is on.............does it really matter if it comes from the county, the state, or the federal level? Which agency would you rather pay your fine to?

 

[Anonymous]

If the heat is on.............does it really matter if it comes from the county, the state, or the federal level? Which agency would you rather pay your fine to?

It matters to me Mitch since the action he speaks of is not taking place up here. Had it been state, we'd see it up here. Ditto with federal. It's a localized issue at best.

FWIW my sister sent me this from the CDFA website:

Pet Shop (licensing): call the local county Ag Commissioner or Animal control, or Consumer Affairs.
Pet Shop (sick animals): call the local county Ag Commissioner.

CA Ag can be involved as well in the case of noxious weeds.

Getting fined for salt creep is ridiculous and fight able via the courts. They can't slap a fine on a non issue and salt creep is not a health issue for fish unless it's "most the salt from the system" which I highly doubt. Sounds like a court case to me

 

[dizzy]

I've seen cases where salt creep becomes an issue with electrical plugs strips, but it's more of a safety issue than an animals rights issue. If they pass a law making it illegal to sell pets to anyone under 16, it will probably be at the state or federal level.......... or even at the One World Government level........which seems to be the path we are on.

 

[dizzy]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/artic ... dfish.html

Mail Online


Thursday, Apr 01 2010 3PM
If this is justice, I'm a goldfish

Last updated at 8:06 AM on 01st April 2010

* Comments (164)



The curious case of the great-grandmother tagged, fined £1,000 and put under a curfew for selling a goldfish to a 14-year-old boy reads like a chapter from my latest book, which the Daily Mail has been serialising this week.

Looking at the date on today’s newspaper, you could be forgiven for thinking the entire story was an elaborate April Fool’s joke.

But there’s nothing remotely funny about the horrible, eight-month ordeal 66-year-old Joan Higgins has been forced to endure at the hands of trading standards officers.
oan Higgins

Unfair: Joan Higgins, holding a goldfish at her pet shop in Sale, was ordered to wear an electric tag for selling one to a 14-year old girl in an undercover sting

She was caught up in an undercover ‘sting’ operation, mounted under the Animal Welfare Act 2006, which makes it illegal to sell domestic pets, including fish, to children under the age of 16 unless accompanied by an adult.

Council officials received an unsubstantiated rumour that Mrs higgins, who runs a pet shop in Sale, Greater Manchester, had supplied a gerbil to a 14- year- old girl with learning difficulties.


More...

* Goldfish seller gets used to life as a tagged 'criminal'

So they staked out the premises and sent in a 6ft tall schoolboy, just shy of his 15th birthday, to buy a goldfish.

When Mrs Higgins failed to ask him to prove his age, they moved in and charged her with selling a fish to a person under 16, and threw in a second offence of failing to provide appropriate care and treatment to a cockatiel with a weepy eye and a broken leg - something she denied.

Mrs Higgins was also accused of failing to provide proper advice for the care and welfare of goldfish.

In court, she had no option but to plead guilty. She was technically in breach of the law, although she said the cockatiel was not for sale and she had intended to take it to the vet.



But the magistrates showed no mercy.

Mrs Higgins was handed a £1,000 fine, placed under a two-month curfew between the hours of 7pm and 6am and fitted with an electronic ankle bracelet so officials can monitor her every move.

She was warned that she could have been sent to jail. The maximum sentence is 12 months, plus a fine of £20,000, or both. her son, Mark, who helps run the shop, was also fined and ordered to carry out 120 hours of unpaid community work.

No one, with the possible exception of deranged animal rights fanatics, could argue that the punishment in this case remotely fits the crime.

Selling a goldfish to a minor wasn’t even an offence until four years ago. They were freely given away as prizes at fairs.

When I was a boy, rag-and-bone men would hand out goldfish in exchange for old clothes.

Let’s agree that concern for animal welfare is a mark of a civilised society.

Mrs Higgins certainly would. She has been licensed to sell pets for 28 years and, far from having a history of cruelty and neglect, is a member of the People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals (the country’s leading veterinary charity).

So why was she subjected to the same kind of treatment as a hardened criminal? Ankle bracelets are normally fitted to thugs likely to terrorise local communities, and prisoners out on licence under the early release scheme.

What did they think Mrs Higgins was going to do — hang around youth clubs and playgrounds peddling goldfish from a suitcase to under-age glue-sniffers?

This curfew means she can’ t even babysit her great-grandchild. her sentence also speaks volumes about the mentality of the kind of people who are appointed magistrates these days.

You can’t become a JP unless you subscribe to the entire, warped New Labour agenda which is a deliberate assault on natural justice and common sense.

This whole episode is a graphic illustration of the sinister punishment culture which has grown up under Labour over the past 13 years.

This Government has introduced more than 3,500 new laws since 1997, most of them ridiculous and yet backed by draconian punishments.

For instance, it is now a criminal offence to sell a squirrel door-to-door. When was the last time anyone offered to sell you a squirrel? Most of us pay exterminators to get rid of squirrels, not buy one as a pet.

We have a control-freak government which hires hundreds of thousands of people with nothing better to do than dream up exciting new ways of meddling in our lives in order to justify their own pathetic existence.

Britain must by now be about the most regulated, inspected, restricted, nannied, spied-upon country which still pretends to be a democracy on earth.

A whole raft of offences has been created, all punishable by huge fines out of all proportion to the assumed ‘offence’. Just look at the penalties now handed out liberally to people who leave their dustbin lids open half an inch.

Did you know that riding a bicycle without a bell carries a fine of £2,500 and up to two years in jail?

All this is enforced by a Town hall apparatus which behaves like the Flying Squad, mounting covert surveillance operations and using anti-terror laws against citizens suspected of the most trivial offences.

Labour has busied itself criminalising the law-abiding while failing miserably to tackle real crime.

Mrs Higgins’ ordeal is closely related to the Proof of Identity and elf’n’safety madness which has been sweeping Britain and which has been well-documented in my column.

We’ve had pensioners forced to prove their age when buying knitting needles. People have been asked to prove they are over 25 before buying spoons, because they are classified as ‘drug paraphernalia’.

Supermarkets refuse to sell alcohol to people under 25 — even though the law says you have to be only over 18.

Some stores won’t even sell booze to people who can prove their age — if they’re with someone who looks under 25. Mums with their children have had bottles of wine confiscated at the checkout.

Mail readers have told me they’ve been refused everything from furniture polish to scissors because they weren’t carrying a driving licence or a passport.

Whenever I write about this madness, those who work in supermarkets email me to say they have no option because they are operating in a climate of fear.

That’s why they go to such ridiculous lengths. Shopkeepers and checkout assistants say councils are running a reign of terror, threatening to prosecute anyone who doesn’t ask for proof of identity, even if the customer is in a bath-chair pushed by his great-grandchildren.

There are now even specialist private companies employed by the major supermarket chains to test out the system by sending undercover agents up to checkouts to see if the hapless assistant on the till remembers to ask for proof of age.

Those who forget can be docked wages or even sacked.

Behind all this insanity, you won’t be surprised to learn, is yet another job creation scheme. Sorry, ‘investing in front-line services’.

Here’s a typical advert from The Guardian, naturally, for Underage Sales enforcement Officers from an agency which supplies local authorities.

‘You will work . . . organise and implement test purchasing on establishments that have previously been investigated and inspected or are under suspicion of selling products with a minimum age limit.

‘You will also be required to maintain the council’s databases including inputting complaints and writing up investigation notes.’

Pay starts at £13 an hour. These are the kind of jobsworths now mounting covert stake-outs of pet shops and hardware stores, hoping to entrap unsuspecting small businessmen and women trying to earn a crust.

For the past 13 years, Labour has been churning out laws aimed at criminalising decent people, with the combined aim of picking our pockets and showing us who’s boss.

We now live in a country where a 66-year- old great-grandmother can be threatened with jail, tagged, fined £1,000 and subjected to a curfew simply for selling a goldfish to schoolboy.

This is what Labour meant when it promised to be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime.

You couldn’t make it up.

 

[Raskal311]

I've seen cases where salt creep becomes an issue with electrical plugs strips, but it's more of a safety issue than an animals rights issue. If they pass a law making it illegal to sell pets to anyone under 16, it will probably be at the state or federal level.......... or even at the One World Government level........which seems to be the path we are on.

The fire department inspects the store yearly and the only concern they had was extension cords. I was also told that the tidiness of my dry goods storage is causing stress to the live stock. They had a problem with a box being on the ground instead of on a shelf. None of the shelves can hold a box that large and it’s in a closed storage not seen by our customers or the fish.

I’m hoping this is just another agency going gung-ho much like agency that fined me for not watering my grass during a huge remolding/construction project. They came by twice and wrote me a $120 fine then was never heard from again.