Animals Act 1971 (Amendment) Bill

Yes, but I am always willing to give a clear answer when I am able to do so. One or two of the dog cases illustrate a similar problem to the one that I am discussing. Fardon v. Harcourt-Rivington from 1932 is the first such case and it is one of the leading ones. The dog in question, a large Airedale, had been left unattended in a car parked round the back of Selfridges. When an innocent passer-by walked past, the dog started jumping about, the window broke and a shard of glass went into the passer-by's eye. No liability was found in that case. There probably would be liability under the principles of the Mirvahedy case, which the hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire wants to remove. I am discussing the common law as it stood before the Animals Act and before Mirvahedy, and that would again be the position as a consequence of the Bill. When someone shuts a dog inside a car and the dog then starts to jump about and breaks a window, there ought to be liability, even though the court found that there had been no negligence in the 1932 case. I come to the case of an accident that occurred virtually on all fours with the Mirvahedy case. The Searle v. Wallbank case related to events of April 1944, when someone cycling during a blackout collided with a stray horse on the highway. Again, the net result was that no liability was found. That was a similar case to the Mirvahedy one. The case of Fitzgerald v. E.D and A.D. Cooke Bourne (Farms) Ltd in 1962 involved a filly in a field, and again no liability was eventually found. The trial judge found that the fillies were not vicious but had a malicious propensity to play, which the defendants knew to be potentially dangerous, but the defendants' appeal was allowed on the basis that the animals were mansuetae naturae—domesticated animals. That was the sort of case—