One common thread: They all fell foul of the RSPCA By Guy Adams The last person to speak to Clwyd Davies was his best friend, Michelle Crowther, who telephoned his ramshackle farmhouse just outside Wrexham at around 8pm on Sunday, April 7. It was just two days after the 69-year-old horse breeder had stood before a magistrate for sentencing at the end of a long, harrowing and high-profile court battle with the RSPCA. Distraught at the verdict - he'd been banned from keeping horses for five years - Davies was coming to terms with the imminent loss of a herd of animals that he would call his "children." "Clwyd was very angry and unhappy, and upset," says Michelle. Those horses were his life, and the thought of having to give them up left him deeply saddened. The outcome of the RSPCA case was a huge blow, and he felt persecuted. Missing: Clwyd Davies has been missing since April 7. His best friend Michelle Crowther, right, said he was 'very angry and upset' the last time she spoke to him That night, Davies vanished, leaving the door of his home ajar, and his wallet, keys and overcoat on the kitchen table. He left no message to friends or family, and showed no sign of having planned a long trip. His most treasured possession, a stack of photos of the prize-winning horses and ponies he'd bred over the years, was found in a bedroom. Police have since used a search-and-rescue helicopter to comb local hillsides, and deployed dog teams in a fruitless effort to track Davies down. He's now been officially classified as "missing" for eight weeks. It's a long time. He's a distinctive man, and he ought to have been noticed," adds Michelle. I'm obviously very, very concerned about his welfare. Though still hoping for good news, Michelle admits she is preparing for the worst: she finds it "increasingly unlikely" that Davies will ever be found alive: "I never thought Clwyd was the sort of person who would harm himself. I mean, he'd lived through some very tough times. But at this stage, I'm afraid, you have to treat suicide as a distinct possibility. An eccentric, bearded figure, Davies became known to millions of TV viewers as The Horse Hoarder, after Channel 4 broadcast a documentary in January about his gruelling court battle with the RSPCA. The deeply moving film told how his life had spiralled out of control following the death of Hayley, his 18-year-old daughter, in a road accident. Suffering from depression, he'd thrown himself into breeding horses and ponies, keeping the animals first at his tenanted farm and later on a 75-acre plot on the outskirts of Wrexham. The financial crash of 2008 and the subsequent recession dealt a heavy blow to the horse trade, however. By early last year, Davies was having difficulty selling his livestock and his herd had ballooned to more than 50 unsold animals. Scraping by on a pension of around £100 a week, Davies was unable to afford to properly feed and care for his animals. Many looked underweight, and some were suffering from the effects of untreated parasites. He duly contacted Michelle, who runs a nearby horse rescue centre, and she began helping him to reduce the herd to a manageable level by finding homes for some of his stock. By late last year, just 22 remained. Tragedy: Dawn Aubrey-Ward, a former RSPCA officer, was found hanged after she had given an interview critical of the organistion "This summer, we'd have been able to get the number down, probably to a handful, which he could properly care for," says Michelle. But, sadly, we never got the chance. The reason, she says, was the RSPCA. Early in 2012, before Michelle had begun to work with Davies, the charity had seized six of his horses, which had fallen ill. Later that year, it decided to charge him with 18 counts of neglect. "Clwyd didn't need to be prosecuted, he needed help," says Michelle. My work with him showed that. But the RSPCA seemed to treat the courts as a first, rather than a last, resort. From the moment it dealt with him, it was gathering evidence. However, the RSPCA says this is not the case. It prosecuted Davies only after giving him two warnings, one of which had a time limit extended. On Channel 4"s The Horse Hoarder, RSPCA officers were shown shooting Davies's horses with dart guns and loading them into the back of lorries. "They looked like police, acted like police, and Clwyd found the whole thing very stressful," says Michelle. He was vulnerable, and it was sadly all too much. Last October, Davies later pleaded guilty to six of the 18 charges of neglect. He was asked to return to court six months later for sentencing. That hearing, immediately before he vanished, did not just see him banned from keeping horses. He was also fined £500 and ordered to complete 200 hours of community service. For Clwyd Davies, the sentence hadn't been the half of it, either. Indeed, soon after the RSPCA's charges were filed, he became the target of a sustained hate campaign from animal-rights extremists, who set up a Facebook page billing him "no better than a paedophile." Sioned Morys, the award-winning documentary maker behind The Horse Hoarder, says the tyres of his tractor and other farm vehicles were slashed and water was poured into the diesel tanks of machinery. Power cables at his home were cut. At night, vandals began knocking on his door and waking his dogs. By day, mysterious figures would lurk in undergrowth, taking pictures of Davies and his animals, which were later uploaded to Facebook. "He wasn't prone to self-pity, but I certainly felt sorry for him," says Michelle. It felt like a vendetta. It was pure persecution. The harassment was reported to the police, yet it continued unabated for months. There is, of course, no suggestion that these actions were carried out by the RSPCA, but were rather the by-product of the publicity that came with the charity's action. "I don't think anybody is prepared for the degree of hate that comes towards you when you are caught up in one of these RSPCA cases," says Clive Rees, the lawyer who represented Davies. The only thing I would compare it to is the treatment of child molesters or murderers. It's that extreme. Rees believes that the sentence handed down in April came as a huge shock to Davies. "There was never any suggestion that Clwyd ever did anything deliberate to harm his animals," he says. He loved them and wanted to continue to look after them. We pleaded guilty to neglect because the Animal Welfare Act expects you to keep animals 100 per cent fit, 100 per cent of the time, and he obviously hadn't. But, in my opinion, the ban wasn't justified. Spotlight: The case of Dawn Aubrey-Ward has put the high-profile legal cases and PR campaigns pursued by the RSPCA under scrutiny Whatever its rights and wrongs, the Clwyd Davies case certainly throws an unforgiving spotlight on the RSPCA at a time of increasing scrutiny over its pursuit of expensive and high-profile legal cases and PR campaigns. In May, for example, the charity faced a public image crisis following the death of Dawn Aubrey-Ward, a former RSPCA officer found hanged at her home in Somerset. Aubrey-Ward - a mother of four, who left the organisation in 2010 - had given an interview critical of the RSPCA to the Mail on Sunday five months earlier. Speaking to the newspaper, she had described her horror, during her time as an employee, at having to euthanise what she called "healthy animals." The comments sparked widespread controversy. In response, the RSPCA issued a statement which suggested that its whistleblowing former employee was a liar and a suspected criminal, who was motivated by malice. It began: "Please be aware that Dawn Aubrey-Ward is a disgruntled former employee of the RSPCA who was subject to a disciplinary investigation for alleged theft of animals. She left the organisation with matters still pending. The RSPCA's statement was then picked up and circulated by animal-rights extemists. Over the days that followed, Aubrey-Ward endured a torrent of abuse on Twitter and Facebook, telling friends that she was struggling to cope with the tide of hate mail, death threats and abusive telephone calls from extremists. On her own Twitter feed, she claimed that the RSPCA had "ruined my life" and said that its PR statement was "evil." An inquest will soon rule on the cause of her death. Whatever conclusion it reaches, her case seems far from isolated. Indeed, recent years have seen several documented suicides involving men and women caught up in disputes with the RSPCA. Last year, for example, a Norfolk pig farmer called Stephen Brown shot himself in the head three days after the media was informed that the charity was investigating cases of animal cruelty on his property. Pig farmer Stephen Brown was found dead three days after he was accused of animal cruelty It would appear that animal-rights activists videoed evidence of abuse of animals on his farm and circulated the video on the internet. The RSPCA was appalled and began an investigation. In 2010, Alan Brough, a Shetland pony breeder from Cumbria, hanged himself after the RSPCA confiscated his livestock. Recording a verdict of suicide, the local coroner said that, as a result of the raid, his "world fell apart." Also that year, a gamekeeper called Graham Key killed himself after being found guilty of firearms offences following an RSPCA and police raid on his home. And, in 2008, a Cornish farmer called Richard Barrett died in what police called a suicide, the day after RSPCA and vets from the Department for the Environment, Food and Agriculture visited his property. The coroner recorded an open verdict. Clive Rees - who in addition to Clwyd Davies has represented many defendants in cruelty cases brought by the RSPCA - believes these tragic deaths are only the tip of an iceberg. "There are too many other cases to list," he says. A few years ago, for example, I represented a chap in Stafford on a dog case. He was acquitted, rightly, but within two months was found hanged. That never even made the news. Rees says lawyers can also find themselves in the firing line of animal-rights extremists. He's had bricks thrown through his office window and paint daubed on his front door after acting for clients accused of animal abuse. Others face more gruelling opposition. Take Jonathan Rich, a leading barrister who last month revealed that he has been forced to turn down defence work in cases brought by the RSPCA after a string of formal complaints were filed against him by the organisation and its supporters. In total, he's faced a dozen misconduct complaints to the Bar Council. None has ever been upheld (although three remain active) but defending them has cost him around £1 million. Leading barrister Jonathan Rich has been forced to turn down casework after the RSPCA and it supporters filed a string of complaints against him The experience might have driven him to suicide, Rich said, "were I not a person of more than average firmness, with a very loving and supportive wife and family." Not everyone is fortunate enough to be so robust. And many critics of the RSPCA believe that the number of reported suicides involving men and women in its firing line represents a trend. The truth, it must be said, is likely to be less straightforward. Suicide is, after all, a complex phenomenon which tends to be motivated by a variety of factors. The RSPCA also points out that it investigated 611,558 allegations of animal cruelty between 2009 and 2012. Yet RSPCA interventions and PR statements about people certainly seem to set off a tirade of abuse on Facebook or Twitter and other potentially distressing actions by animal-rights extremists (acting independently of the RSPCA) against the subjects of the charity's actions, which may well be a core factor. Asked about the issue, the RSPCA said in a statement: "It is deeply saddening to hear of someone taking their own life. However, we are appalled at any suggestion that the RSPCA is responsible for the tragic deaths of individuals. In the wake of recent events, it would not be appropriate for the RSPCA to discuss the circumstances of personal matters and specific cases beyond the information already in the public domain. With regard to the charity's prosecution policy, the statement added: "The RSPCA will investigate any allegation of abuse or neglect and, if appropriate, prosecute those responsible for animal abuse." The charity also said prosecution is always a last resort and that it tries to help vulnerable people. That policy is, nonetheless, the subject of growing controversy. In January, MPs held a debate on the subject. Its sponsor, Simon Hart, a Tory MP, pointed out that in 2012 the charity secured 3,000 convictions at a cost of £8.7 million. That is more than twice the number of prosecutions it brought in 2008. The charity, Hart claimed, has become "possibly the most prolific private prosecutor in the UK." As to the Clwyd Davies case, it will return to the public eye on June 12, when a follow-up to The Hoarse Hoarder is due to be screened by Channel 4. The film seems likely to make uncomfortable viewing for supporters of the nation's largest animal charity. "I was at Clwyd's house the day after he went missing," says Sioned Morys, the programme's director. While I was there, an RSPCA inspector turned up to talk to the police. She offered to assist in looking for his body. At that very moment, I realised that it was the only time, in all my time covering Clwyd's case, that I'd seen someone from the RSPCA offer to actually help.