NEWS AND COMMENT-TRENTHAM AREA, UK: A 61-year-old, white van driver from Stoke-on-Trent was seen to impatiently drive over a column of ducklings on the road while all other motorists had stopped to let them pass. It is not uncommon to see a mother and ducklings crossing the road in the UK. People do the decent and obvious thing which is to stop and let it happen. But in this instance the unnamed man drove over them after initially stopping. He was seen by the others, one of whom is Stephen Walley who posted about the incident on Facebook. You can see his post below. He included photographs. I can’t show the dead ducklings here because I have advertisers and I can’t have adverts on the same page. In any case, it is unnecessary to show the crushed ducklings in order to understand the story.
As you can see it occurred on the A34 at Trentham Gardens roundabout where a family of seven ducklings were crossing the road. All the traffic stopped as you might expect except for this van driver who after initially stopping “drove straight over them, crushing three of them”.
Mr Walley followed the man along A34 to a layby where he had a heated conversation with him. The man said: “I don’t f***ing care”. Of course, the public who have commented on his Facebook post are “utterly disgusted”.
Paul Foy commented “What an evil vile individual. Hope he gets comeuppance for this act. Horrible vile piece of s**t.”
It appears that subsequently he voluntarily attended a police station to be interviewed. I guess he had to because Mr Walley had photographed his van with the registration number and therefore, he was fully identified. He had nowhere to go and once you have a viral story on social media which is a potential crime the wise thing to do is to see the police about it rather than them coming to see you.
Staffordshire Police confirmed that they had interviewed the man on Sunday. They are investigating whether a crime has occurred under the Wildlife and Countryside Act. What about the Animal Welfare Act 2006?
THREAD | We are aware of a post circulating of a van driver who is believed to have killed ducklings in Trentham.
We have made contact with the author of the post and are establishing potential offences under the Wildlife and Countryside Act.
— Staffordshire Police (@StaffsPolice) May 21, 2022
Staffordshire Police Issued a Statement on Twitter: “We are aware of a post circulating of a van driver who is believed to have killed ducklings in Trentham. We understand this is an emotive issue for many people and we ask please that you do not take matters into your own hands.”
There are some more articles about crimes below.
