A spokesman for Weymouth and Portland Borough Council said they sympathised with Lennox's owners but they had acted in the interest of public safety.After all, you didn't bother to check any of the records, did you?
...He said the vet's records showed that Lennox had to be muzzled during previous visits there for treatment.
The spokesman added: 'We wish to express our regret for the undoubted hurt felt by the family, but in this case we had a wider duty to protect the public.'
And that 'wider duty to protect the public' might have got you out of trouble if you'd had to shoot the dog in the street, but not for euthanising it (without following any of the usual procedure) while it was in your possession and under your control.
I hope they do indeed take legal action. And I hope they win.
I hope they do indeed take legal action. And I hope they win.
7 comments:
What's that type of thinking where you start with the answer you want. Then make the facts fit it. You know like AGW.
Oh yeah, lying, that's it
What passes as "service" these days leaves me cold.
Pavlov's Cat got there before me. Shame the cost if they sue will come out of the taxpayers pocket rather than the wages of the council people involved though.
This reminds me of the case up in North Wales recently when all those cows were slaughtered in an open field on the say so of the local council. It seems council officials, in league with the Police now think they can do whatever they like, with impunity. And they can, because what can the people in this case do? Enter into a never ending, vastly expensive legal battle with the council & the Police, both of whom will never admit guilt and use taxpayers money ad infinitum to outspend their opponents?
I propose that if David Cameron is serious about curbing the powers of Local Authorities and State bodies (which I severely doubt) he should pass a law stating that in the event of a public body being sued by a member of the public, then the public body must apportion a publicly announced fixed budget for that legal case which they CANNOT exceed. This will then have the effect of making them as constrained financially as the member of the public suing them, and thus mean they would a) be a lot more careful about being sued in the first place, and b) more likely to settle to save money, rather than trying to outspend the claimant.
"What's that type of thinking where you start with the answer you want. Then make the facts fit it."
And this case is particularly galling, coming not a day before the government proposes microchip registration of all dogs because 'police find it difficult to establish ownership of dangerous dogs'.
Well, not in this case!
"What passes as "service" these days leaves me cold."
Me too.
"Shame the cost if they sue will come out of the taxpayers pocket rather than the wages of the council people involved though."
I'd be in favour of muzzling and castration.
"It seems council officials, in league with the Police now think they can do whatever they like, with impunity. And they can, because what can the people in this case do? "
Increasingly, these people see themselves as the masters, not the servants...
My dog is friendly to one and all, especially children, but needs muzzled when she visits the vet. He had to set her broken leg when she was a pup and she's never forgotten the pain and fear. In her tiny doggy mind the vet had something to do with the disaster and she's been poised to take a lump out of him ever since. The vet undertsands and muzzling is all part of the routine. Muzzling a frightened animal is not a valid reason to kill it, any more than the necessity of wearing a beekeepers' veil means that the council should burn your beehive.
The phrase "I work for the council" needs to attract roughly the same sort of odium as "I am a neo-Nazi who rapes babies." Hyperbole? Of course. But this sort of behaviour goes not merely unpunished but almost unremarked (if the Daily Mail were to faithfully record every excess of the current British Reich it would be the thickness of the Yellow Pages every day.) Employment by the UK state is tantamount to taking blood money.
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