Tom Nero – a murderer in waiting
In 1751 William Hogarth, an 18th-century animal campaigner detailed through his engravings the story of a child turned murderer, Tom Nero. In the first scene, Nero is seen abusing animals on the streets of London. In ‘Scene Three’ entitled ‘Cruelty in Perfection’, Nero commits a domestic homicide and is finally apprehended for this crime.
Perhaps he should have been apprehended for the animal abuse and given an appropriate deterrent sentence. Maybe he should have been added to an ‘animal abusers’ register and monitored through a Multi-Agency Public Protection Panel.
As it was, the signs of violence were missed or considered a normal part of boyhood, or of what was acceptable in society.
Case studies like this around the world happen every day and people are harmed because public protection systems miss opportunities. According to the British Crime Survey, there were 373 domestic murders last year, a fifth of the overall total of deliberate killings. There were 1.5 million incidents, 900 000 crimes that cost the country over £66 billion, but to each victim, of course, the impact is immeasurable. Violence Against Women and Children (VAWG) has fortunately appropriately been added now to the country’s national priorities.
What Naturewatch Foundation is doing to help protect animals and protect people
Hogarth was a pioneer for animals, and it was at his home in London where Naturewatch Foundation held our ‘Protect Animals. Protect People’ event for professionals in June 2023. We knew that some incredible work was being done by organisations on the animal-human link and we wanted to highlight this, then ask, “What more could be done?”
We heard from the Animal Law Unit at 42 Bedford Row Barristers, The Links Group and the Cats Protection Paws Protect project. We heard more about the history of the Four Stages of Cruelty and listened intently about systematic coercive control from someone who had to live through this horror.
Our attendees and the panel of experts from the fields of Criminology, law and veterinary science discussed a range of issues to try and establish how as a society we should stop a ‘Tom Nero 2023’ from harming humans and how protecting animals may help.
What about the next Tom Nero?
This week the Metropolitan Police roll out the College of Policing’s new ‘DARA’ (Domestic Abuse Risk Assessment) and we will play a small part in training officers about how animals can be used in domestic abuse cases.
We have reached out to a London-wide audience through the ITN News to show the impact of this kind of abuse, and together with the Dogs Trust Freedom project for fostering animals from abuse cases.
The feedback from our event has been positive and we hope that those that attended from a hugely diverse background will consider their plans, their strategies and their priorities so that we can recognise the next Tom Nero and prevent more humans from becoming victims of abuse.
That’s what our ‘Protect Animals. Protect People’ campaign is all about.
Please follow our event page, as we will be adding updates from the day very soon.
