the cat had been sort of shunted across
the room with his foot and then slapped
he didn't look that there had been i
didn't see the cat i couldn't inspect
the cat but
it is possible the cat is fine no but
maybe the cat is all right
the cat is but you know you can hurt a
human and the human ends up all right
but that doesn't make it justified or
doesn't mean there shouldn't be
punishment
three minutes past nine you're listening
to me rachel johnson here with you
leading britain's conversation on lbc
till 10 p.m and i want to turn
to the case of kurt zuma the footballer
who
kicked his cat and actually then
proceeded to i think i said watch the
video wasn't pretty at all and obviously
we don't want
anybody to treat any animal with any
cruelty it was animal abuse
kurt zuma's cats have been taken away
from him by the rspca he's been fined
250 000 pounds a drop in the ocean i
presume to him he's a premier league
footballer plays france my
listen i mean i know i mean i thank god
it's after the watershed
i'm not a cat person i don't believe in
animal cruelty in any shape or form i am
a animal lover i'm the daughter of an
environmentalist a man who's won the
rspca award
for services to animals
however
i do think we are in danger of
overreacting
and cancelling kurt zuma for one
misguided kick in his kitchen which his
silly brother posted on social media
he's 27 clearly he's old enough to know
better but do we really want to live in
a world where one silly mistake
can lead to the end of somebody's career
i think we don't i think he's taken his
punishment his cats have are now no
longer in the house
i think he should apologize and move on
i think there are bigger issues at stake
which is why i've invited ed winters to
come and talk to us he's a prominent
vegan youtuber words i've never said in
that order before and he's behind the
channel earthling ed he's the author
also of a book called this is vegan
propaganda and other lies the meat
industry tells you
ed thank you for coming on lbc this
evening
i speak as an animal lover
of course
are we allowing our national obsession
with pets and i'm thinking of the animal
airlift from afghanistan and this
incident in kurt zuma's kitchen to
obscure a much bigger problem when it
comes to animal welfare
i mean it's a really great question and
thank you so much for inviting me on to
to speak to you about it because it's
obviously very important that we are
outraged about instances such as this
one where kurt's clearly gone out of his
way to abuse his animal for what seems
like entertainment and fun on his part
and i think it is really important that
we condemn that but we should also
definitely look at the bigger picture
here which is you know why is it wrong
to slap a cat but not to put pigs in gas
chambers for a bacon sandwich or to cut
the throat of of dairy cows because we
want to have a glass of milk without
without breakfast in the morning so
there is a bigger issue here at play
which we sometimes overlook with our
kind of outrage at uh instances such as
this one but not the bigger picture
we anthropomorphize off our pets we give
them
christian names um we give them funerals
we give them grave gravestones um we
love them passionately and yet
under this below the surface all of this
is going on and
the animal sentience bill is going
through parliament
and
the tory shahs are up in arms again
about it because it could
it could ruin their sport quite
literally because it it credits animals
with sentience i then how can you then
have legal shooting mass industrialized
killing of pheasant or grouse how can
you have hunting
of the stag and the fox when it's clear
that they feel pain and so it raises we
don't want to see this because it
actually alters our way of life
so true i mean we're very selective when
it comes to our compassion towards
animals and use the word sentience which
is such an important word because when
we recognize that the animals that we
farm or who we hunt or who we kill and
also the animals who we love in our
homes as pets when we recognize that
they're all sentient beings capable of
you know suffering or feeling pain also
of course feeling happiness and pleasure
as well it makes it even more obvious
that we live in a very kind of
paradoxical situation where as you say
we give
you know names to dogs and cats but then
we give numbers stapled through the ear
to pigs and cows and the other animals
who we farm and we reduce them to
objects who we find you know almost
we find it morally permissible to do
terrible things to these animals which
if kurt had done to his cat well we'd be
even more outraged now the truth is for
the animals in farms and slaughterhouses
they wish they were only being slapped
and when it comes to cut zuma which is
my question to to the listeners i mean
obviously if they want to discuss um
live animal exports or they want to
discuss the morality of of fishing
uh or hunting or any other sort of field
sport
um
do you think it's proportionate what's
happened so far he didn't play
in leicester tonight but that was his
own choice
he's been fined the cats have been taken
away do you think that should be the end
of the matter or do you think that
should be the end of his career
well i think we have animal cruelty laws
for a reason and these animal cruelty
laws aren't used to protect animals in
situations where they're exploited
conventionally and if they're not going
to be used in situations where the
animals who we conventionally love are
being abused and harmed then it really
brings into question the veracity of
having animal cruelty laws in the first
place so i think that he should be
taken in front of a you know he should
be interviewed by the police and he
should be found to have to you know i
think that there is a case here for a
criminal case that he should have to
answer to and it shouldn't be for
necessarily us to decide what the
punishment should be but rather the
courts that are obviously going to be
the ones to fulfill the the animal
cruelty laws that we've created now i
take i understand the logic of that if
he's committed a crime and he's guilty
of animal abuse
then he should uh be made accountable
for that but the
the additional question the underlying
question is the one that's concerning
people which is should he be allowed to
continue to play football for west ham
after what he's done and my view i have
to say this despite i'm sure i'll get a
barrage of bruce is i think he should be
allowed because his footballing career
is separate from what he has done
possibly criminally in his private life
in his house
but most crimes are committed in
people's private lives and so that
shouldn't be a reason to allow people's
professional careers to continue and the
way i see is a slippery slope and i
think if we start to allow certain
things like this to continue it's set a
bad example for what people should be
allowed to do to animals in day-to-day
life and you know if we are a nation of
animal lovers which we say that we are
well we have to start showing it and
taking meaningful action against people
who do go out of their way to abuse and
cause cruelty to you put him on the same
level as carl mendy for example who's
being benched for being under allegation
from multiple rapes
um well i don't think it's about
comparing the two i think if people have
done something that's criminal and wrong
they should both be punished within the
constraints the law for the individual
actions they've committed um so i'm not
very familiar with the case or
describing but i think that they're
probably not comparable because the
actions are of course not similar
right
okay so you think that what somebody
does
in their private life if it's then
it's obviously a crime that should as it
were affect everything about their
personal life and their career too
because in his case he's a footballer
he's a public figure
what if he wasn't a public figure let's
say he served uh coffees or burgers in
mcdonald's do you think mcdonald's
should sack him for what he did in his
private life at home with his cat
well the problem that we have is that
he's not being prosecuted so it's hard
to determine what an adequate punishment
should be if he's not been found guilty
or not guilty in the courts of law so if
he's found guilty in the courts of law
and that he serves his punishment which
could be a jail sentence as animal
cruelty laws say that it could then that
would obviously you know interrupt his
career and stop him from having a job
opportunity that he has right now in the
future but the thing is we're we're
speculating on something where he
doesn't have a conviction yet so the
first thing that should happen is he
should of course be arrested and then he
should go to the courts and he should
find out if he is is it
our animal laws
animal cruelty laws strict enough is
what he's done an irestable offense
he's certainly a restable certainly yes
okay
wow okay so
thank you ed winters you've been very
clear about that you say that what he
what kutzuma has done
is enough to cancel his career as a
footballer and you have explained why
i've explained that i think that that is
disproportionate to what he has done in
his private house which was was put on
social media as a silly joke uh
obviously of a really ugly scene and we
don't want to see that repeated in any
household across the country
can i throw a question back at you just
briefly because i'm interested i'm
interested to know
what what does he have to do to his cat
to have his career impacted you know how
far would he have to go because i guess
that is a good question ed i mean i
looked at the video it wasn't pretty it
didn't seem to me that the cat
it was
the cat had been sort of shunted across
the room with his foot and then slapped
he didn't look that there had been i
didn't see the cat i couldn't inspect
the cat but
it is possible the cat is fine no but
maybe the cat is all right
what if the hopefully the cat is but you
know you can hurt a human and the human
ends up all right but that doesn't make
it justified or doesn't mean there
shouldn't be punishment
so i just wonder how how far does he
have to go to warrant a punishment that
would be more in line with what i
believe in your eyes
i haven't thought about that i only saw
the video and it was not not it was a
horrible thing he did but the cat at the
end of it
did not look that much the worst for
wear but i i see the point you're making
you're right as you say it's a slippery
slope but do we have a zero tolerance of
any treat bad treatment of any pet in
any house
for example i'll tell you one example my
dog
got a chocolate bar in
her mouth if she had eaten the chocolate
bar i would have she could have had to
have her stomach pumped so in order to
get the the chocolate bar out of her
mouth i had to grab
open her jaws and literally
move her with my foot yes i kept kicker
in order to get the chocolate bar out
now what would you say to me about that
but you did that in her best interest
because it was for her
at the same time of course but overall
it was a beneficial and that positive
for your dog because without you doing
that she has suffered more but kurt what
he did to his cats had no benefit to the
cats whatsoever of course i think we can
agree on