Examination of Witness (Questions 230
- 239)
TUESDAY 14 DECEMBER 1999
MR KEVIN
DEGENHARD
Chairman
230. Good morning, Mr Degenhard.
(Mr Degenhard) Would it be in order for me to read
out some notes which I made last night as a prompt which focus
directly on your brief?
231. Let us see where we get to with the questioning
because you may get an opportunity during the questioning to do
it. If not, tell me at the end.
(Mr Degenhard) Fair enough.
Mrs Dean
232. You believe that all air weapons should
be the subject of licensing.
(Mr Degenhard) We do.
233. How would your proposals for licensing
and certification of air weapons and their users be applied to
the estimated four million that are already in circulation?
(Mr Degenhard) This is an estimation. I simply do
not know how that would be handled in the early stages, but just
because it is a big job does not make us believe it should not
be attempted.
234. How reasonable is it to expect the police
to enforce a new licensing regime in retrospect on this scale?
(Mr Degenhard) I presume there could be a suspended
commencement date incorporated in any proposal.
235. In your view, would proper enforcement
of existing laws on the possession and use of air weapons have
the same effect? It has been suggested that if the law was enforced
as it stands then you could have the same effect as licensing.
Would you accept that?
(Mr Degenhard) I think in an ideal world that could
be the case, but we have some 330 RSPCA inspectors who see this
at the sharp end. We are picking the animals up either immediately
after a shot or sometimes several days or weeks after they are
shot having suffered meanwhile. We are aware of a survey which
was carried out by the Cats Protection League in 1996 and approximately
1,300 vets in Great Britain were surveyed and at the end of that
year their returns showed that 74 per cent of those vets received
animals which had suffered as a result of air gun pellets. The
total number of cats, in particular, which were affected through
Great Britain in 1996 was listed as 10,300 and something. We know
that our statistics round about that time fall far far short.
We are in the dozens by way of prosecutions and perhaps the police
have not got a tremendous amount more than that and we are wondering
why there should be the shortfall. It is our experience that these
matters go unreported. Vets do not report them to us. There are
situations which we know of where neighbours are not willing to
report because they do not want to fall out with their neighbours
and the situation where adults are protecting juveniles. Based
on real life experience, we do not think that any attempt to apply
the current law is going to help any more than it has done in
the past.
236. You say that new ballistics technology
enables specific air weapons to be traced from the evidence of
fired pellets. Is that technology in use at present in the UK?
(Mr Degenhard) It is. We have used it. It costs between
£400 and £600 for the forensic laboratory check on air
gun pellets. In most cases where we have proceeded on not guilty
pleas it has been necessary. The big problem we have is the anonymity
behind which a lot of air gun owners hide because there is no
traceability. We suspect that a .177 or .22 air gun pellet may
relate to someone in the neighbourhood, but there is no record
of people in the neighbourhood who have got them, especially the
low powered weapons that are not registered. It puts us at a tremendous
disadvantage when we are trying to pursue these matters.
237. But there have been successful prosecutions,
have there not?
(Mr Degenhard) Yes. I have done a quick poll round
the inspectorate over the last three weeks and we are talking
of something in the region of 50 to 60 in 1999 taken by the RSPCA
and many of those have relied on police checks, but that is when
we have had sufficiently good evidence from dependable witnesses.
It is in those areas where there are gaps and we have to trace
the gun that the ballistics check becomes absolutely essential.
238. Can you tell us how many prosecutions you
bring involving crossbows?
(Mr Degenhard) I was not prepared to be asked that
question. It is a few a year.
239. Not as many as you just mentioned for air
guns.
(Mr Degenhard) No.
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