Public outcries against high-profile cases of animal abuse are completely justified but always underpinned by hypocrisy. Yet would there be any real consequences at all if the public was apathetic towards all animals, not just the ones who are farmed? Claire Hamlett writes.

The video showing West Ham footballer Kurt Zouma kicking, chasing and slapping his pet cats has received almost universal condemnation, as has the decision of West Ham manager David Moyes to let him play in a match against Watford last night. Zouma is now being investigated by the RSPCA and the police and has had his cats removed by the RSPCA. Public outcry over cases of animal abuse is always underpinned by hypocrisy - why does society condemn the ill-treatment of some animals but condone the mass confinement and slaughter of farmed animals? But without that outrage, would there be any real consequences for Zouma and others in their violence towards animals?

Zouma was filmed in his Essex home kicking a cat across the kitchen and slapping another out of the hands of a child. Laughter can be heard in the background. Moyes’ accepted Zouma’s ‘apology’ after the video went viral, and defended putting him in the lineup for last night’s match. But football fans expressed their displeasure, with both sides reportedly booing every time he touched the ball and chanting “That’s how your cat feels” when he started limping after a tackle. More than 120,000 people have signed a petition calling for Zouma to be prosecuted and to have the cats removed from his care, while everyone from Chris Packham to London Mayor Sadiq Khan have condemned both Zouma and Moyes. 

The RSPCA and Essex police have now launched a joint investigation into the incident. Zouma could face up to four years in prison in his native France for animal cruelty. But the decision by the police to investigate only seems to have come after the enormous public outcry and pressure from people like Packham, as the Metropolitan Police originally said they would not investigate. With the evidence of violence towards defenceless animals so clear to see in the video, not to mention the fact that Zouma directly exposed a child to this abuse by slapping a cat out of the child’s hands, it is strange that the police didn’t agree to get involved sooner.

But Moyes’ decision to let Zouma play last night’s match is the most telling sign that he might otherwise have got away with his actions with minimal consequences if not for the attention of the public and the media. Moyes put a football match ahead of the welfare of Zouma’s cats, and only in the face of media scrutiny was he forced to defend his choice. Similarly, while it’s good that West Ham has just issued Zouma a fine of £250,000 (two weeks’ wages), which will be donated to animal charities, one suspects this is also a reaction to the public backlash, rather than to the act of animal cruelty itself.

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Perhaps this is too cynical a view. Perhaps other West Ham officials really are aghast at what they witnessed and are trying to make amends for Moyes’ mistake. We can only hope, especially considering how footballers are respected and admired by legions of young people, to whom Moyes sent the message that you can be abusive and violent and still be a star. 

But other recent high profile cases of mistreatment of animals caught on film suggest that public outcry does play an instrumental role in ensuring perpetrators suffer some consequences of varying degrees of proportionality. Sarah Moulds, the woman who was filmed by hunt saboteurs kicking and hitting a horse during a hunt meet last year, is now being prosecuted by the RSPCA and was sacked from her job as a primary school teacher and her volunteer role with the Pony Club. A jockey and a racing horse trainer were given temporary bans from horse racing after pictures emerged of them laughing while they sat on top of dead horses. While these were cases of disrespect to the animals rather than cruelty, they provoked a serious backlash, forcing horse racing regulators to take action. An Olympic horse trainer was suspended from the Tokyo Olympics last year after she was filmed punching a horse for refusing a jump - though prosecutors dropped their case against her, excusing her behaviour on the grounds that the Olympics is a high-pressure environment. 

These were all more public instances of abuse than that conducted by Zouma, who was filmed in his own home by his brother. But it was the fact that they were caught on camera and subsequently viewed by people around the world that partly, if not entirely, helped to ensure that those animals could not be mistreated with impunity.

Claire Hamlett is a freelance journalist, writer and regular contributor at Surge. Based in Oxford, UK, Claire tells stories that challenge systemic exploitation of and disregard for animals and the environment and that point to a better way of doing things.

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