Conscience should always trump the law

I HAD been hoping to get over the horrific scenes witnessed on television last week, of the mob handed police aiding and abetting Defra officials in binding up the jaw and dragging away the terrified alpaca by the name of Geromino. Unfortunately, one newspaper columnist’s piece that I read this week makes me almost as angry as I was on Tuesday last.

The piece was disingenuous, as is the Government, in keeping on about the need to keep bovine TB under control and the consequential need to obey the rules, but avoiding the main issue of this unnecessary slaughter.

No one, to my knowledge, is arguing that the scourge doesn’t need to be kept under control, but in this case there were massive doubts as to the accuracy of the testing, which were borne out by the fact that the animal was not displaying any symptoms some four years after being first tested.

Strange isn’t that Defra are unwilling to allow an independent post-mortem examination, and indeed are unable to announce the results of their own test, citing somewhat ridiculously, Covid as the reason for such a stance.

Presumably, this was reason for all the brave individuals involved in the dreadful events being fully masked when there was no reason to do so.

I can only imagine they were ashamed of their actions in choosing the excuse of having to obey the law, rather than having the courage to risk their pensions by refusing to take part. Now, where have we heard that excuse before? In my book conscience trumps the law in all cases.

What made this whole sorry episode even worse was the dragging away of the obviously frightened animal; why wasn’t the vile deed done on site?

David Woods Bristol