'Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive', so said Scottish author Sir Walter Scott. It seems the head of wildlife crime unit, Kevin Lacks-(more than)-Kelly, has not heeded the advice from the great Scottish writer.
In an extraordinary exchange with the Moorland Association [MA], Inspector Kelly confirmed he was withdrawing the membership of the organisation from the Raptor Persecution Priority Deliver Group, based on a blog published on the MA website, questioning whether surveillance regulation was being bypassed in order to install cameras across grouse moors.
This led to triumphant squeals from Ruth Tingay, who last week excitedly published the news with the headline ‘Moorland Association booted off the PDG’.
The decision to withdraw the membership of the MA was reportedly taken following a meeting with conservation group members of Wildlife and Countryside Link the day before.
Many of these groups harbour longstanding resentment towards the MA because they know MA members achieve far more for the environment, endangered wildlife and the local economy, with no cost to the public purse, than they could ever hope to.
As pressures on the national budget increase, public awareness of conversation charities -who often oversee colossal budgets yet rarely have any positive impact to show for their spending - is only going to become more intense.
Some, including other parts of the police force, might argue that the same is true of the National Wildlife Crime Unit given their inflated budgets and limited prosecutions.
Last month the Met Police cut back their wildlife crime unit and there are now calls across the police force to see this replicated nationally.
In response to the withdrawal of the PDG membership, the MA published a further blog confirming they had been removed from the group.
It states:
“Following our advice to members, the Moorland Association was informed this week that its membership of the Bird of Prey Crime Priority Delivery Group had been rescinded.
We regret this decision, as the Moorland Association has been a loyal member of the group since it was established and has arguably achieved more than any other partner in reducing wildlife crime, with bird of prey numbers at record highs.
This decision to expel us raises a number of questions for the National Wildlife Crime Unit, including whether police services intended to delegate their surveillance work to the RSPB, which many of our members feel harbours hostility and bias towards moorland managers.
We are also seeking clarification as to why police officers told several MA members that surveillance equipment was needed as crimes had been committed on their land. When the MA contacted police about the nature of these crimes, officers said that in fact they ‘believed’ crimes had occurred: a small but crucial difference in language, particularly when infringing on the public’s right to privacy.”
It was after this follow up blog that the actions of Inspector Kevin Lacks-Kelly then became in even more bizarre.
Perhaps realising that his actions had been entirely disproportionate to the very valid questions raised by the Moorland Association, and likely concerned that the triumphalism expressed by Animal Rights activists would be construed as the Wildlife Crime Unit becoming indistinguishable to activist anti-shooting groups, Inspection Kevin Lacks-Kelly has reportedly began to urgently back-peddle.
RSPB and National Wildlife Crime Unit together in Yorkshire
In response to the latest blog Inspector Lacks-Kelly tried to suggest it was not in fact the MA at all who he had expelled from the PDG, but its Chief Executive Officer, Andrew Gilruth.
That wasn’t how any reasonable reader could have expected to interpret his letter, and certainly not how the MA members or indeed Ruth Tingay did either.
The sorry saga simply reinforces quite how closely aligned the National Wildlife Crime Unit has become to the RSPB. Indeed, the two organistions regularly post pictures of themselves together on social media, with no mention to the many deplorable tactics and surveillance techniques the RSPB are thought to use which would never be passable in a court.
The outcome of course will be a complete breakdown in the working relationships between private landowners, the RSPB and the National Wildlife Crime Unit.
Then again, given raptors are now at their highest levels for 250 years and there have been zero cases of raptor persecution on moorland this year, perhaps that breakdown is what the conservation charities want in order to continue to tell a tale of bogeymen for their fundraising purposes.
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