No, there isn’t an epidemic of dognapping

A proposed new offence of ‘pet abduction’ is pointless gimmickry. The existing law is more than sufficient

When governments run out of sensible ideas they pass stupid laws involving dogs. Earlier this year, the Government set up the Pet Theft Taskforce, charged with making “clear and timely recommendations on ways to improve the situation around pet theft”. The Task Force is now expected to recommend a new offence of “pet abduction” with a maximum sentence of five years imprisonment. If the theft of pet dogs really is a growing problem, a new offence with a shorter maximum sentence than the seven years already available for ordinary theft is a curious way of tackling it.

The supposed epidemic of dog theft featured in many of last spring’s Police and Crime Commissioner elections, no doubt in an effort to interest an otherwise largely apathetic electorate. A campaign video for Mark Shelford, for example, the successful candidate for my own area of Avon and Somerset, involved the great man striding through fields with a brindle greyhound at his side, explaining how “disgusted” he was at the “shocking increase in pet theft across our region”. Criminal gangs, he said, “steal dogs, often in broad daylight and from back gardens”. He cited a widely quoted figure that pet thefts had increased over the last year “by a staggering 250 per cent”.

The statistic, which appears to have come from the Dogs Lost website, from where it has now vanished, is nonsense. There has been no staggering increase in dog thefts. Compiling the nationwide figures is a tedious business, but according to Mr Shelford’s own Avon and Somerset police there were just 18 dog thefts in their area in 2020, a statistically insignificant increase of 0.4 dogs, or about 2.25 per cent, over the running average from 2016-2020.

But campaigners say the new offence is still necessary because sentencing guidelines treat dogs and other pets as mere property; and since most pets are worth less than £500 they do not allow judges to sentence dog thieves to more than 12 months imprisonment.

Even if this guideline were unthinkingly applied, however, the replacement value of most dogs would comfortably exceed £500: it is all but impossible to find any puppies for sale for less than £500. Most dog thieves would find themselves facing a potential sentence of up to three-and-ahalf years even under the most literal application of the current guidelines.

And while it is true that they do not specifically recognise pet theft, the guidelines explicitly require judges to increase sentences when stolen property is of “substantial value to the loser regardless of monetary worth”, which would easily permit sentences of up to two years imprisonment for the theft of any pet. If a dog is stolen from inside a home the offence is burglary, if force is used it is robbery, and if stolen for ransom it is blackmail, all carrying far longer sentences than simple theft.

The idea that lots of criminal gangs are cruising around looking for dogs to steal is also nonsense. In my 35 years as a criminal barrister I have come across gangs stealing everything from scrap metal to paving stones. Not once have I encountered any specialising in dogs.

Gangs steal for money, and while there might sometimes be money to be made from stealing pedigree breeding dogs or puppies, there is virtually nothing to be made from stealing the average family pet for the obvious reason that most are going to be virtually impossible to resell. If any such gangs in fact exist, they can be prosecuted using a combination of conspiracy laws and consecutive sentences which again permit far longer sentences than those for a one-off theft of inanimate property.

It is true that there is a wide disparity between reports of dog theft and the numbers of actual prosecutions. Leicestershire Police have published statistics that hint at why this might be. Of the 37 reported Leicestershire dog thefts in 2020, just one resulted in a charge. In many cases no suspect could be identified, in others there were “evidential difficulties”, the owner “did not support further action”, or a prosecution was “not in the public interest”. There is not the slightest reason to suppose that a new offence of pet abduction would make prosecutions easier. Indeed, given the additional need to prove that a stolen animal was a “pet”, it might even make them more difficult.

The proposed new offence, therefore, is pointless. Parliament has better things to do than waste its time on gimmickry like this.