THE DOG DIDN'T DO IT

Andrew Roberts on a man who gained

a criminal record after his whippet barked at a couple of police horses

IN P.G. Wodehouse's masterpiece The Code of the Woosters, PC Eustace Oates is bitten on the ankle while riding his bicycle by Stiffy' Byng's Aberdeen terrier Bartholomew, causing him to fall off and, as he immediately complained, to suffer 'pierced skin scraped off right knee. Bruise or contusion on left elbow. Scratch on nose. Uniform covered in mud and'll have to go to be cleaned. Also shock — severe.' But 1937 was long before the days of political correctness and the gross obsession with public 'safety' from dogs, and sanity finally prevailed. Today Stuffy would not be so lucky, especially if the incident had taken place in a Royal Park.

Nowadays, as my friend Robin Birley has found to his great cost, it is possible to be given a criminal record even if your dog so much as 'interferes with the comfort or convenience' of anyone else; even if no one is actually frightened, let alone bitten. At 5 p.m. on 1 October last year, Birley took his one-year-old whippet, Chester, for a walk through Rutland Gate and into Hyde Park. There, as is perfectly legal, he took Chester off the lead, as he had done twice a day for seven months. Chester is gun-metal grey, of generally fine temperament and was no more than 18 inches high when the five-minute incident occurred. Seeing two police horses cantering along Rotten Row 100 yards away towards him, Chester ran over to them and barked. The police horses — trained to stay calm even when rioting mobs throw stones at them — did not shy or rear (according to Birley), and Chester did no more than bark, as young dogs are sometimes prone to do when excited.

The rest of the story tells us much about the present state of British law regarding dogs, the extreme jobsworthiness of the Royal Parks police force, and the priorities of the police at a time when robberies and muggings in London have increased by a third over the past three years.

First the police stopped their canter, Chester having run off towards the Serpentine (while staying within sight all the time). WPC Susan Taylor gave Bliley a short and perfectly reasonable lecture about Chester's behaviour. Birley apologised, promised not to take Chester off the lead until he had completed training, and went off to leash the whippet. There the matter should have rested. Yet a month later Birley received a summons to appear before magistrates.

In her statement to the court, WPC Taylor said that Chester had made the horses 'shy violently', something vehemently denied by a South African friend of Birley's named Allan Schwarz, the only witness to the event other than WPC Taylor's colleague. Furthermore, WPC Taylor and her colleague stated that Chester had interrupted a football match, which Birley and Schwarz also deny. Certainly no footballer was called by the prosecution, and no one has come forward to say they were in any way inconvenienced. As Birley's mother, Lady Annabel Goldsmith, has pointed out: 'The idea of ten people being Intimidated by a puppy like Chester is just laughable.'

Birley has lived near Hyde Park and has walked dogs there for nearly 30 years without causing any trouble; yet he was not cautioned for this trivial first offence, but summoned to stand trial. Later the judge at the appeal asked WPC Taylor why she had not simply cautioned Birley, whereupon she invoked that now regular fallback of all public servants — 'safety considerations'. This explanation makes little sense, especially when one considers that Chester was soon back on his lead.

The charge Birley faced at Bow Street magistrates on 12 December was that he 'did intentionally and recklessly interfere with the safety, comfort or convenience of any person using a Royal Park contrary to regulation 3 (1) of the Royal Parks and Other Open Spaces Regulations 1997'. He pleaded not guilty and the case was heard on 18 January.

Now it was important to the prosecution to establish that Chester was the kind of dog to behave badly if taken off the lead. According to WPC Taylor, Birley had admitted that Chester had 'chased the horses' in the park only the previous day. But as it happened, neither Birley nor Schwarz could recollect Birley having said any such thing, not least because Chester had not chased horses before. By the time the case came to the appeal, the question of Chester's prior form seems to have become irrelevant. The fact is that the Royal Parks police dislike dogs being allowed to run off their leads.

Birley was found guilty at Bow Street, and conditionally discharged with a criminal record and an order to pay £100 towards the prosecution's costs. Most people would have left it at that, but Birley decided to appeal, unable to believe that such a trivial incident could have led to a situation in which, for example, he might have to declare his criminal record whenever he travelled. He also hoped that WPC Taylor might withdraw her account, according to which he had confessed that Chester had a history of chasing horses, a statement that Birley vigorously denies having made. There was also an outside chance that Chester might be destroyed under the Dangerous Dogs Act, an idea that the dog-lover in him could not bear.

So Allan Schwarz flew to London from Mozambique for a second time, but last Thursday. at Southwark Crown Court, the appeal failed. An inauspicious mix-up meant that one of the two magistrates hearing the appeal alongside a judge was none other than the presiding magistrate at the original hearing, who had to excuse himself while a search was conducted round Southwark Crown Court for a spare magistrate.

Having lost the appeal, Birley now joins the metric martyr Steve Thoburn in having a criminal conviction only for doing something Englishmen have done for centuries. Or one might mention the recent prosecution of Christian Sweeting, the Tory candidate for Torbay, who was originally charged under section 16A of the Firearms Act 1968 after merely waving an unloaded 30-year-old air rifle at yobbos who were threatening his mother's house and causing hundreds of pounds worth of damage to his Mercedes parked outside.

The full weight of the law is being brought down on the heads of respectable Englishmen whose dogs have the temerity to bark, or who wish to sell groceries in imperial measures, or who protect their family and property; while elsewhere the police are telling homeowners that they are too busy to attend crime scenes when their cars are broken into. Although Chester will not now be put down, the case has cost Birley more than £10,000, and at the appeal his contribution to the prosecution's costs was increased to £250. The Royal Parks police, who are not noted for their zeal in dealing with the notorious menace of high-speed roller-bladers on pathways, are quite happy to persecute boisterous whippet puppies on 'safety considerations'.

Police heavyhandedness in minor cases such as this has dangerously undermined the regard in which the middle classes of this country hold the police force. Birley, who had never before been in trouble with the law, has concluded: 'It is no good smiling wryly at another incident of "political correctness gone mad"; victims have got to do something. But you should be careful before you talk to the police and always ask to see the notes they have taken. Always ask for a solicitor to be present, however seemingly minor the supposed infringement.'

In The Code of the Woosters, PC Oates informed Stiffy Byng that a summons could be expected, but he evidently relented. No prosecution ensued, in spite of Stiffy's subsequent campaign to steal his helmet. How much more hysterical the forces of law and order would seem to have become in their persecution of dog-owners, and how much more vengeful are the police towards respectable, law-abiding folk.