In August 2015, the Charity outed an animal abuser called Mrs Yang. They had helped to fund her trip to Yulin to rescue dogs but she could not account for the money she had received nor show the Charity any of the dogs she said she said she had saved. Not even one dog! Also, her four shelters spread out miles apart in China were filthy with dogs without food or water and with open sores. Numerous animal welfare groups were witness to her abuse. In fact, 12 genuine Chinese rescuers came with us to her shelter. Even the police commented that her hellholes should be closed.
It was hard for donors and supporters to learn that Mrs Yang, a woman they had trusted implicitly was so cruel and heartless as to exploit the suffering of the dogs in her care for fundraising purposes. Donators were immediately reassured that the money left over from the fundraiser would go to decent rescuers and help dogs rescued from Yulin according to the original intention of the fundraiser. Most people were happy with that decision, but Mrs Yang had some supporters who refused to accept that she was an animal abuser and scammer in spite of the clearcut evidence.
Among Mrs Yang’s supporters were two ringleaders who it had previously been discovered through a series of leaked emails had been campaigning against NoToDogMeat with the aim of closing it down. One was an actor called Peter Egan who has trolled other animal charities and the leaked emails prove he had in fact been plotting since at least September 2013, just a few months after NoToDogMeat opened in April of that year to close the charity down while at the same time promoting his own charities. Egan was working closely with another individual called Daniel Allen, a human geography teacher working to promote himself as an animal TV presenter.
These two men took it upon themselves to promote a false narrative about the charity, the fundraiser and Mrs Yang and her shelters and head up a group of people to troll and attack the charity. They created a Change.org petition full of inaccuracies and blatant lies in order to recruit more followers. They managed to convince a Daily Mirror gossip columnist to publish their fabricated story which was full of inaccuracies as part of their campaign designed to defame NoToDogMeat while at the same time promoting themselves and their causes.
The Mirror article completely ignored the NoToDogMeat site visit report in August 2015 as well as several reports from Chinese officials and rescue organisations condemning the appalling state of Mrs Yang’s shelters and the terrible conditions the dogs were forced to live in. Even though a further comprehensive report with video evidence of dead and suffering dogs was published on 24th Nov a full week before the article came out and clearly stated all they needed to know about finances, they still went ahead with their fabricated story as it had become clear they had another agenda which was not really about Mrs Yang.
A registered charity is bound by law to make sure donors funds are correctly used. Funds raised to help animals cannot be spent to help make them suffer. The law also is clear on how extra funds ( funds left over) should be spent. Geography teacher Allen was wrong in law to state monies should go back to donors or be handed to the animal abuser. The law set down by the Charities Act confirmed the charity had made the right decision to use leftover funds not handed over to Mrs Yang to help other rescuers in China.
So in December 2015 an article was published in the top red newspaper the Daily Mirror entitled “Slurs and abuse over dog fund cash riddle”. The online version of the same article was titled “Dog charity cash mystery as animal lovers hounded for asking where £70,000 donations have gone”. The article appeared in a weekly column subtitled “From the fishy to the fraudulent” by Andrew Penman, a tabloid journalist who styles himself as a type of investigator.
The story centred around the two figures who had for the last two years attacked our Charity for their own personal reasons, Peter Egan and Daniel Allen. Neither man had ever come to see our Charity, telephoned us or made any meaningful contact. Neither party had donated to our Charity nor been to the dog meat markets. The article failed to mention any of these important points.
The statements in this article were deliberately ambiguous and littered with incorrect information, designed to defame and attack the Charity and to mislead the public into believing things which were not true – for this reason we need to set the record straight.
If these accusations had been said outright it would have left the Mirror open to action in libel, so instead, the writers disingenuously used innuendo, misleading phrases (e.g. “missing money”) and the juxtaposition of pictures and statements, leaving it for the reader to join the obvious dots. This approach left the paper room to deny it actually meant these things – as it did in the subsequent IPSO press watchdog complaint.
These are the things which the article suggested and which any average reader would infer.
1. That donors money had gone astray
This allegation is completely false in that the Charity ran an open fundraiser and has kept donors updated at all times on how the funds raised have been spent. The Charity has acted at all times within the law working closely under the advice of the Charity Commission. No funds have ever been lost or gone astray – the Charity has distributed funds for the overarching and original purpose intended for the funds which are to directly and materially benefit dogs rescued from Yulin. Our detailed accounts are open and fully available to the Charity Commission and on its website.
2. That the Charity had failed to provide information on the fund and failed to answer questions
The Charity kept the fundraiser page itself up to date with the correct information. It kept in regular touch with donors via email.:There were also two posts on this site which went into great depth on the issues surrounding the fundraiser:
https://notodogmeat.blog/2015/08/24/notodogmeat-update-totalgiving-fundraiser-for-mrs-yangyulin/
https://notodogmeat.blog/2015/11/24/notodogmeats-site-visit-to-mrs-yang-in-china-august-2015/
It is also pertinent to repeat that though the two men behind article claim their questions were left unanswered, at no time did they contact the Charity directly to ask these questions.
In addition, they were invited many times over a period of several months to call the charity CEO and speak to her in person, and each and every time they categorically declined, preferring instead to rely on their own ‘research’ efforts and faulty deductions and online trolling of our volunteers. The Charity regulator clearly states that complaints and concerns need to be made directly to the Charity.
3. That NoToDogMeat young female supporters/staff had been responsible for a ‘torrent of abuse’ directed at these two grown men
There has been no evidence that any ‘torrent of abuse’ ever even existed – although the phrase has been used by the article’s participants over and over again on various forums, no doubt in the hope that it would stick in people’s minds. No evidence of this mythical ‘torrent of abuse’ has ever been produced. Instead, the newspaper article mentioned a brief and quite civil Facebook exchange via private message which took place with a supporter (incorrectly described as an ‘admin’ in the article) and this was given as an example of trolling when it clearly was nothing of the sort. There has, however, been well-documented abuse and online trolling by these two men attacking the female volunteers.
4. That the Charity was ‘under investigation’ by the Charity Commission
Another misleading phrase, as there was, and is, no ‘investigation’. The Charity Commission replied to the participants in the article and told them it was ‘looking into’ their complaints and reminding people they should contact the Charity first. The Charity Commission have worked closely to help guide the Charity through this time and supported the Charity’s decision to cease funding of Mrs Yang, a proven animal abuser. The Charity Commission agreed with the Charity’s decision to use funds left over from the fundraiser to help genuine rescue.
5. That under UK charity law the Charity was required to return the money to donors
With regards to charity law, the article relied on the badly researched opinions of one of the men, Daniel Allen, who in real life is a human geography teacher, to present his own unqualified, inexpert and completely wrong interpretation of the law.
In order to confuse the general public and further his own campaign, he published a general reply on fundraising that was not specific to our case. “Our guidance on fundraising makes clear that if funds are raised for a specific purpose, they should be spent on those purposes.! The law actually states that if money is left over from a fundraiser because it can not be spent for the original purpose, it can be spent on helping other rescues. That is what we did. We spent leftover money to help dogs in China and save their lives.
The Mirror made an offer to the press watchdog to publish a clarification: “We would be happy to publish a clarification to set out Ms De Cadenet’s position in relation to the legal point”.
However, more than 3.5 years later, they have so far failed to do so.
http://ogs.charitycommission.gov.uk/g053a001.aspx
Sadly, the Mirror succeeded in wriggling out of any real sanctions from the press watchdog who accepted their denials at face value while acknowledging article’s deficits: Point 13 IPSO report “The Committee acknowledged that the way in which the claims in the article were presented created some ambiguity as to who the questions had been asked of, and who had abused the campaigners online”.
Despite misleading the public the Mirror later told the press watchdog they were not accusing the charity of anything: “The article did not assign blame for the abuse suffered by Egan and Allen online to any member of the charity.” The fact is neither of these two men were subjected to any online or other abuse because if they had, due to the large number of people they had duped into supporting them in their attacks, they would have been able to produce screenshots of the abuse when they were subsequently asked to do so. This proves that when Peter Egan and Daniel Allen had said they had been subjected to online abuse, they had lied.
Of the ‘questions asked’: “The article does not state or imply that Allen put this question directly to No To Dog Meat, but states that ‘he asked what happened to the balance’. Allen posed this question in an open LinkedIn post, which did not name the charity” (our italics), The charity never saw this article apparently called “Mrs Yang’s Missing Money” and Allen removed it shortly after posting it. Very odd behaviour for someone claiming to be a serious academic. Why not just phone or email the charity and ask directly?
Later, the Mirror went on to add insult to injury by using the IPSO ruling as an excuse to repeat its original lies, extraordinarily singling out our CEO for personal attack for submitting the complaint in the first place, contemptuously referring to her by her first name only in the article title. This is yet another incidence of online bullying of the women at the charity by these three men.
The Charity Commission is aware of these cyber trolls and has advised us to continue our work taking legal action where required.
If anyone needs further clarification of this subject, they can contact the Charity who will be happy to explain.
Thankfully, leading serious newspapers like the Independent and The New York Times have directly interviewed the Charity clarifying the position about Mrs Yang and focusing on our vital work helping to end the suffering of the dogs and cats in the meat trade.
New York Times:
https://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/09/22/china-yulin-dog-meat-rescue-yang-xiaoyun/?_r=0
Independent (the published article is behind a paywall):
https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-independent/20170121/283167198269930
The Charity Commission fully endorsed the Charities decision with regard to the animal abuser Mrs Yang. They agreed that the Charity had taken the correct decision to halt their funding of a woman who not only failed to show evidence of her rescuing dogs at Yulin but mistreated animals and left them to die.
The Charity Commission agreed 100% with the Charity’s interpretation of the law and agreed unused funds could be used to fund the genuine rescue of dog meat trade dogs and cats in China.
The Charity (now recognised by the United Nations) has set up its partner shelter in China with over 400 well cared for dogs and cats.
