CPNs

Councils threaten bird feeders with 5 years in prison

The Manifesto Club is in touch with two members of the public – a 70-year old man and a woman in her 50s – who are currently being threatened with prison for feeding the birds. Both individuals received Community Protection Notices (CPN) for bird feeding, then they were issued with Criminal Behaviour Orders (CBO) with the same restriction. Now, both are facing threats of prosecution for CBO violation, which carries a maximum of five years in prison and an unlimited fine.

These cases show the extremely disproportionate measures some councils and police are taking to target animal lovers suspected of feeding the birds. This is a significant demand on state resources and has a very negative effect on the lives of the targeted members of the public.

Over the past eight years, the pensioner has received the following penalties:

  • 2016 CPN for feeding the birds
  • Civil injunction for feeding the birds
  • 2017 CPN for feeding birds
  • 2019 Civil injunction for feeding the birds
  • 2020 Civil injunction breach trial, sentenced to 15 weeks in prison;
  • 2021 Community Protection Notice for feeding the birds
  • 2022 £100 on-the-spot fine for CPN violation
  • 2023 CPN breach trial and £600 fine
  • 2024 CPN breach trial and £600 fine
  • 2024 Criminal Behaviour Order
  • 2024 CPW with banned area including the beach.

The gentleman currently feeds the birds on the beach, which is an area not covered by the CBO. He feeds for about half an hour a day; when he has finished, the birds leave and there is no food left behind. The council is threatening to change the CBO map to include the whole of his district, and periodically tells him that if he breaks it he will receive ‘4 or 5 years in prison’. It appears to have started the process by issuing him with a CPW with a banned area that includes the beach.

The woman is alleged by the council to feed birds and foxes in her local area. Since 2021, she has received the following penalties:

  • Community Protection Notice for feeding birds;
  • Prosecution for CPN breach; conviction and £3000 fine;
  • Criminal Behaviour Order for feeding birds;
  • Arrest for CBO breach, spent one night in custody;
  • Request to visit police station to give fingerprints for CBO violation;
  • CBO breach trial and CBO appeal are both pending.

Bird feeding is very important for the pensioner. He has fed the birds since the 1960s, and says that it helps him with his grief at the loss of close family members, as well as with his depression and ongoing sobriety.

He feels that he is being unfairly targeted, and treated like a dangerous criminal, for something that doesn’t hurt anyone, and that he feels does a lot of good for local wildlife. He says:

The council seems determined to get me imprisoned for a number of years. I’ve received the same penalty as a dangerous criminal or a drug dealer.

The lady says:

When I was arrested I was thinking, ‘are you crazy?’. They are talking about some bird seed, but they were making me sound like a terrorist, like I’m doing some big crime.

These are not isolated cases. According to Manifesto Club FOI requests, 10 councils issued at least one CPN for bird feeding in the period between November 2020 and October 2022.

Criminal Behaviour Orders are supposed to be used for serious offences, hence the potential prison sentence. It is very concerning that CBOs are being used for non-compliance with Community Protection Notices for actions such as bird feeding. There are around 6000 Community Protection Notices issued each year, in our experience often on the basis of petty actions or ill-founded complaints. A FOI request to the Ministry of Justice found that between 2015 and 2022, 239 CBOs were issued for non-compliance with CPNs (including 34 in 2022).

The Home Office needs to urgently review procedures for issuing CPNs and CBOs, to ensure that they are used impartially and proportionately, targeting acts of significant public nuisance and harm. Bird feeding by animal lovers should not be treated as a serious crime.