Commentary on provisions of the Act Section 1: Dog abduction
Subsection (1) of this section establishes an offence in relation to the taking or detaining of a dog for actions that take place in England and Northern Ireland. It provides that it is an offence for a person to take a dog so as to remove it from the lawful control of any person, or to detain a dog so as to keep it from the lawful control of any person who is entitled to have lawful control of it.
	Subsection (2) provides that no offence is committed where the conditions in (a) to (d) of that subsection are met, and therefore the offence does not apply in certain cases involving persons who previously lived together in the same household with the dog.
	Subsection (3) sets out that it is a defence for a person to show that they had lawful authority or a reasonable excuse to take or detain the dog.
	Subsection (4) provides a specific defence in relation to stray dogs in England where the person has taken all reasonable steps to comply with section 150(1) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, which is the legislation dealing with stray dogs. Subsection (5) provides a similar defence in relation to unaccompanied dogs in Northern Ireland where the person has complied with Article 24 of the Dogs (Northern Ireland) Order 1983.
	Subsection (6) provides that the defendant is under an evidential burden of proof in relation to the defences in subsections (3), (4) and (5), so that if sufficient evidence of the defence is provided, the burden is then on the prosecution to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the defence is not true.
	Subsection (7) sets out the penalties for offences under this section, which include, on conviction on indictment, a maximum of five years imprisonment, a fine, or both.
	Subsection (8) includes definitions of "taking" and "detaining" for the purposes of this section.