article_snippet: Yesterday, the pro-hunting Countryside Alliance said the RSPCA was at a crossroads, and would have to decide whether to continue to bring what the RSPCA described as 'malicious' cases or 'embrace sanity and change tactics'.
article_snippet: the RSPCA has the power to bring the RSPCA own prosecutions rather than rely on the police or the Crown Prosecution Service.
article_snippet: However last October, a report commissioned by the charity recommended abandoning the policy and leaving the job to the CPS, which has more expertise.
article_snippet: Last year, The Mail on Sunday reported that the RSPCA had spent £22.5 million on prosecutions in two years, and had been obliged to take out an overdraft facility with the RSPCA bank, Coutts, for the first time in the RSPCA 190-year history.
article_snippet: Addressing the Cattistock's claim that the RSPCA had mounted a campaign of surveillance, an RSPCA spokesman said: 'This is an outrageous slur and completely untrue.
article_snippet: an RSPCA spokesman went on to reject the claim that the dropped prosecution had been effectively paid for by a wealthy backer, insisting: 'the dropped prosecution was funded by the RSPCA.'