Thousands say lawyer who clubbed fox to death in his garden must face court
FURY AT LAWYER WHO BEAT FOX TO DEATH
Yesterday’s Mail night.
THOUSANDS of people have signed a petition calling for the barrister who battered a fox to death to be prosecuted.
The RSPCA has launched an investigation after prominent QC Jolyon Maugham revealed he used a baseball bat to kill the fox trapped in netting protecting chickens in his London garden on Boxing Day.
Despite apologising later for causing ‘upset’, the furore over his attack grew yesterday with thousands of comments on social media and publicity spreading across the world.
Mr Maugham said yesterday he would be ‘making no further comment until the RSPCA investigation had reached a conclusion’.
The row began when he tweeted: ‘Already this morning I have killed a fox with a baseball bat. How’s your Boxing Day going?’
He added: ‘No one should relish killing animals – and I certainly didn’t. But if you haven’t been up close to a large trapped fox, perhaps reserve judgment.’
Mr Maugham said he reported himself to the RSPCA following the backlash from his tweet and he added in further explanation: ‘I wasn’t sure what else to do.’
He also said: ‘To be quite honest, although I don’t enjoy killing things, it does come with the territory if you’re a meat eater.’
Under the Animal Welfare Act, it is against the law to cause an animal ‘unnecessary suffering’, and according to a fox control group ‘ clubbing’ is among the methods of killing deemed illegal. An online petition calling on the Crown Prosecution Service to prosecute Mr Maugham for cruelty to a fox had collected more than 3,000 signatures last The petition states: ‘The public interest would be served by a proper investigation and clarification of the law and if appropriate prosecution for this cruel act.’
The Metropolitan Police said it was ‘not a police matter’. The
Bar Standards Board also refused to comment on whether any complaints had been made about the barrister’s behaviour.
Mr Maugham, 48, made a name for himself through legal bids in recent years to stop Britain leaving the European Union.
And he has been criticised for potentially damaging his professional reputation by going public about the fox incident.
Paul Brannon, a reputation management consultant, said: ‘What a catastrophic PR disaster from a supposedly learned man.’ He added that the lawyer’s reputation was ‘in tatters’.
BBC Springwatch presenter Chris Packham joined in the outrage on social media, telling Mr Maugham ‘you battered a fox to death rather than properly protect your chickens and then bragged about it’.