HUNDREDS of reports of deliberate cruelty to animals have been made in Oxfordshire.

New figures reveal that there were 817 reports of deliberate animal cruelty across the county in the last five years.

The RSPCA has now launched a new campaign to ‘Cancel Out Cruelty’, particularly as the charity sees a rise of on average 400 calls throughout the summer months.

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This equates, nationally, to 47 calls every day or two every hour.

Every month, the animal wellbeing charity gets around 84,000 to its cruelty line – around 1,500 of those are about intentional cruelty.

The campaign seeks to raise funds to keep the RSPCA rescue teams out on the frontline each day to help save those animals who are in desperate need of help.

Each day rescue teams deal with incidents of beatings, knife crime, drowning as well as six reports of people killing or attempting to kill animals.

Beatings, knife crime, drowning and intentional killing are just some of the horrific incidents RSPCA animal rescuers deal with every day.

Dermot Murphy, head of RSPCA animal rescue teams, said: “We always sadly see a rise in cruelty during the Summer months.

“As well as more people being out and about in the longer sunny days, seeing and reporting abuse, we feel there are a number of factors which contribute to this rise.

“Unfortunately, the hot summer days can lead to more people drinking alcohol in the sun which can be a factor in causing violence.”

Mr Murphy also said boredom during the long holidays and more pressures when the whole family is on holiday from school or work, can lead to more cases.

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He added: “Police forces reported a rise in domestic violence last year during lockdown and we are concerned that similar pressures which led to this rise may also have impacted on more cruelty to animals behind closed doors during the pandemic.

“The past year has seen a reportedly huge rise in pet ownership* and we know most people would not dream of harming an animal. However, we are concerned that, as we come out of lockdown and people return to their jobs outside the home or suffer financial pressures, we will see more animals suffer if their owners find themselves unable to cope.”

People of Oxfordshire are urged to support the Cancel Out Cruelty campaign by visiting www.rspca.org.uk

Anyone who wants to report animal cruelty to us to call our hotline on 0300 1234 999.