It is with a heavy heart that hopefield report to that over the last 2 months Hopefield Animal Sanctuary has been the victim of 3 acts of trespassing, theft and worst of all animal abuse.

On the 1st of August 3 youths entered the sanctuary out of hours and took snapchat photos of themselves pulling an innocent goat, Nathan onto an electric fence and tormenting him. They continued on to then push one of the beautiful pigs over and traumatized them. The horses were extremely distressed and CCTV footage showed the horses running away from the youths so we are sure they suffered at the hands of these abusers also. They continued to trespass around the sanctuary for over an hour. This attack was reported to the police immediately and finally after a week we had a visit from an officer, just to be told this is a civil matter and that they could do nothing. We are talking with the RSPCA on how to move forward here and hoping to work together to bring justice.

The second break in we found the bin pushed at our entrance, the small gate had been opened from the inside and they trespassed onto the sanctuary. The police were contacted and we were informed they were going to see the youths involved.

Most recently this week we came in and our beautiful tearoom had been vandalized and items stolen. Sadly lots of essential tearoom goods were stolen and the whole room has had to be closed off while we spend time fixing it back up. We sadly can’t see if they hurt any of the animals or what they spent their time doing whilst they trespassed on the site as they now know where the cameras are and avoided most of them. As a small charity, this has set us back so much with the cost of replacing what has been stolen and the time needed from staff and volunteers to fix the room back up.

The police have been to the sanctuary today and we hope to see immediate action on finding who was involved in this latest attack and support from them to ensure these people are held responsible for their crimes.

We are heartbroken that such cruel people exist and are here within our community. Our animals at Hopefield have been through so much already and are rescued from neglect and abuse cases, to come here where they should feel safe and loved and to then endure more cruelty at the hands of these truly awful people is unthinkable.

We are also asking for donations from any security stores / companies that may be willing to donate equipment to help us further protect our animals from this senseless abuse..