Support Sarah Whitehead

Sarah White­head is a com­mit­ted veg­an activist who has ded­i­cat­ed her life to sav­ing ani­mals and help­ing peo­ple. She worked tire­less­ly as a nurse whilst res­cu­ing and rehom­ing abused and neglect­ed ani­mals, as well as cam­paign­ing against the noto­ri­ous Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. She is not some­one to sit back and let ani­mals be tor­tured and abused, she stands up and fights wher­ev­er she sees injus­tice and nev­er puts her­self first.

Sarah had been informed about an abused bea­gle. It was liv­ing out­side in a wood­en cage, and was muz­zled at all times except for when it got to eat. The dog was made to wear an elec­tric shock col­lar and the neigh­bours informed Sarah that they had wit­nessed beat­ings from its own­ers. The neigh­bours had also heard the dog scream­ing on many occa­sions.

The RSPCA had been called numer­ous times, but they failed to help this dog and left it with own­ers who had on occa­sions tied it to a radi­a­tor.

All avenues had been explored in try­ing to lift this ani­mal from hell. The RSPCA, despite numer­ous com­plaints and vis­its to the own­ers, did noth­ing; even the police had been called by neigh­bours, but they just told them to call the RSPCA.

What else was Sarah to do, but res­cue the bea­gle her­self? How else could this bea­gle be saved? Know­ing how much it was suf­fer­ing, could any­one just leave this bea­gle to live in pain?

Sarah was already on a sus­pend­ed sen­tence for res­cu­ing ani­mals from a noto­ri­ous pup­py farmer in West Sus­sex, which meant that if she re-offend­ed with­in two years she would be sent to prison for that “crime”. Even know­ing this risk to her free­dom, Sarah put the dog’s life and well-being first and lift­ed him to free­dom.

Unknown to Sarah she was under police sur­veil­lance dur­ing the res­cue as part of Oper­a­tion Achilles and the cam­paign against Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. Police fol­lowed her and watched her res­cue the bea­gle, and then watched her take the dog to its sec­ond stage of its jour­ney to it’s new home.

How­ev­er, once the bea­gle was hand­ed over, instead of fol­low­ing the bea­gle in order to return it to its own­er, they car­ried on fol­low­ing Sarah. Luck­i­ly this means that the bea­gle is still safe and liv­ing in a lov­ing home.

Some time lat­er once the police had fin­ished fol­low­ing Sarah around she was arrest­ed, the police weird­ly tried to accuse her of steal­ing the dog so that she could sell it for £500 to raise mon­ey for SHAC (Stop Hunt­ing­don Ani­mal Cru­el­ty) Where this sum of £500 came from is any­one’s guess and it shows how lit­tle the police under­stand the con­cept of ani­mal rights!

Sarah went on tri­al for bur­glary in June 2008. She plead­ed not guilty to the offence as she believed she had not com­mit­ted a crime in res­cu­ing this bea­gle. She told the court she believed she had act­ed rea­son­ably and hon­est and that it was the right thing to do because the police and RSPCA had failed to save this dog. State­ments from the neigh­bours were read in court which described the cru­el­ty to the dog, the beat­ings, and the screams but bizarrely the jury took the view that Sarah should have left the dog where it was and she was found guilty.

The judge sen­tenced Sarah to two years in prison, nine months of this is from the sus­pend­ed sen­tence she was on, and the extra 1 1/3 years is for res­cu­ing the bea­gle.

You can write to Sarah at:

Sarah White­head VM7684
HMP Bronze­field,
Woodthor­pe Road,
Ash­ford,
Mid­dx
TW15 3JZ.
Unit­ed King­dom

Click here for Sarah’s sup­port page

Before going to prison, Sarah cam­paigned for the fol­low­ing groups, so please check out their web­sites:

Stop Hunt­ing­don Ani­mal Cru­el­ty
South­ern Ani­mal Rights Coali­tion
Grey­hound Action
Uncaged
BUAV
Veg­an Pris­on­ers Sup­port Group
Dr Had­wen Trust