A lady in Merseyside has been banned from taking in injured birds, which has been her habit for years. The case shows how council officers issuing CPNs assume a large degree of control over recipients’ lives, with constant demands to inspect their property and issuing minute instructions about how they live (including whether their windows are left open or closed). This goes way beyond any reasonable remit of dealing with serious nuisance or anti-social behaviour; ‘asb’ is defined according to the predelictions and personal gripes of the officer concerned. This case also shows how council officers often stir up bad feeling against the CPN recipient, by sending letters or speaking about them to their neighbours and inviting complaints. This means that powers that are supposed to ease community disputes actually can end up creating them – stirring up a sort of officially inspired witchhunt against a particular individual or family.
I work in bird rehabilitation, I take in injured and baby pigeons and seagulls. I look after them and take them to the vet – or rear them and then release them when they are ready. People bring birds to me when they find them. I advertise online on a Facebook bird rescue group.
My next door neighbour doesn’t like me taking in birds – she has been photographing me and filming me, taking photos of people bringing boxes in, and sending these photographs to the council.
One day a council officer turned up at my door – he said he had come to talk about the birds and the effect it was having on the community. He asked to come in and I said no. He got into a huff and started to threaten me because I wouldn’t let him in. He said he wanted to see the state of the property inside. He got angry and said I’ll issue everyone in the household with a CPW – he closed his book and walked away.
My parents live with me – they are in their 80s, and my father has dementia. But in the end he didn’t issue a CPW to them, only to me.
The CPW said I’m not allowed to go out the house to collect an injured bird, and also that I had to release all wild birds from my house. Some of them are only babies – I can’t release babies, they’ll die. I’ll release them when they are ready. The council officer doesn’t know anything about wildlife.
My CPW also said I can’t advertise rescue services online. The officer said I can admin the Facebook group and direct people, but I can’t help rescue birds myself.
I’m also required to prevent wild birds from roosting on my property. The council officer has a photo of a pigeon on my windowsill, with the window open. When I met the council officer in town, he said that I had to keep the windows closed. He’s a control freak.
The RSPCA visited my house and my place was passed as clean.
The council officer sent me an email, saying that he’ll go to a CPN if I carried on taking in birds, and I could get prosecuted. He’s never showed me any evidence. Where’s the evidence that my practices are bad? The only evidence I’ve seen is a pan lid for feeding birds, that fell into my neighbour’s garden, and the other evidence was some brown bits that fell off the roof. The council officer had pictures of this, saying it was bird poo, but there was no way it was bird poo, it looked more like cat poo.
The council officer also sent my neighbours a letter about me. I only know about this because one kind neighbour, a few doors down, gave me the letter that the officer had sent him. This neighbour said he didn’t have a problem with the birds and will support me. The letter contained lies about me and it made me ashamed to go out – some of my neighbours are turning their backs on me, or staring, where we used to talk. I think the officer is encouraging people to report me and turn against me.
I got a visit from plain clothes police about a month ago. The council officer used to work for the police, I think he put them on to me. The police visited and looked downstairs, and talked to my mum and dad. The police said ‘we can’t tell you how to live inside your house’. No issues found as far as they were concerned, so they just went.
The council man visited another bird rehabber – he also gave her a CPW – and asked her whether she thinks I have the right mental health to look after these birds. She went mad at him, and rang me and told me what he had said.
I have a complaint in with the Ombudsmen about this officer.
One time he called me up, and asked for a visit to check out the birds and the property – he’s obsessed with the property being damaged. I said no, he said ‘I’ll just report you to social services for your mum and dad’, and hung up on me. He’s a spoilt brat just because you say no to him. What power does he have?
It’s frightening, because I want to do what I want to do. I shouldn’t be stopped from going out to pick up a pigeon. I move them on to a vet or a sanctuary. I own my home. My mum reared the baby seagulls last year – she takes them off me and starts feeding them. She loves it.
I like a nice garden. I’m not what he thinks I am. They just judge you on what someone says.