lawyer – Pain In The Bud

Usually when complaints about UK police hit the headlines, it involves sheepish constables knocking to talk to a “suspect” about a social media post that offended someone.

This seems to be a whole different level of crazy, and neither the police nor prosecutors are denying that six police officers and an official from the RSPCA showed up at the North London home of Katherine Theodotou, chopped up the front door with an axe and charged in.

The 79-year-old Theodotu, through her attorney, said she was recovering from breast cancer surgery and couldn’t make it to the door quickly. The police, she said, came through the door just as she was reaching it and knocked her over.

They also provided images of the door after the May 27 “raid” on Theodotu’s home:

Theodotu says the police searched her entire home and an adjoining Greek school, which she founded.

The RSPCA and Metropolitan police tell a different version of the story, although they do not dispute the urgency and violence with which they entered Theodotu’s home. They say veterinarians who examined and treated Rita the cat had serious concerns about her health. Rita, who had a congenital condition, cannot use her back legs and requires special care. Theodotu’s attorney said the former human rights lawyer turned educator can prove she’s paid significant sums for Rita’s rehabilitation and care, including a recent veterinary surgery.

But veterinarians who examined Rita after the RSPCA took her found her condition “extremely concerning and consistent with a significant deterioration since discharge, alongside evidence suggestive of prolonged inadequate hygiene, nursing care, and monitoring within the home environment,” said Mark Townsend, an attorney for the RSPCA.

Theodotu is suing the RSPCA and the police for taking her cat and asking the court to prevent the RSPCA from potentially euthanizing Rita. Let’s hope the courts are able to sort out if the cat was receiving proper care and rule in the animal’s best interests.

In the meantime, the London Metropolitan Police should probably review whichever policy allows its officers to break into homes as if they’re ending a hostage situation, not collecting a cat. Unless a real life Jason Stathamesque character is barricaded in his home and making violent threats, it feels like one cop just to make sure everything stays civil and the temperature remains low would be the appropriate response. Two is overkill. Four is almost comical. But six? With an axe? Chopping the door down? Nah. You’ve gotta revisit your protocols, gov.

An Oregon man didn’t get his cat back but he could be almost $1.4 million richer after a jury decided in his favor in a cat-napping case.

Joshua Smith, 41, adopted a cat he named Frank in 2017 after finding the little guy, apparently a stray, in an alley.

At the time Smith was living in a single room in a group drug recovery home in Portland, according to the Oregonian. The terms of his lease didn’t allow him to keep pets so when Smith’s landlord — a man named Devon Andrade — discovered Smith had been keeping a cat, Andrade took matters into his own hands and stole Frank, admitting under oath he’d taken the tabby and given it to his girlfriend, who then took Frank to a local shelter.

Smith and Frank were never reunited: It turns out Frank has a microchip and he was returned to his original family, the people who were his caretakers before he went missing and Smith discovered him more than six years ago.

Frank the cat, as seen in a photo Fuller showed to the jury.

But it took a jury less than two hours to decide against Andrade and Pine Street LLC, the company behind Pine Street Recovery Housing. The defense argued that even though Andrade should not have acted unilaterally, Smith was still in violation of his lease agreement, but the jurors weren’t buying it.

“The jury’s message should be loud and clear to landlords,” said Michael Fuller, Smith’s lawyer. “You need to respect the rights of tenants, especially when it comes to pets.”

The jury awarded Smith a shocking $1.375 million although it’s not clear how much of that Smith will see. An earlier story, published in 2019, said Smith had sought $250,000 in damages. It’s not clear why the jury went with the much larger amount.

Fuller credits the jury, saying there were several sympathetic animal lovers in the juror box.

Smith said he’s been successfully sober for years. He’s since married, moved to California and opened his own barber shop.

“The most important thing was that I got my day in court,” Smith said. “I got really lucky because I told the truth, no matter what.”