It’s one thing to decide that circuses are cruel and that violence seems to occur with depressing regularity to the elephants kept in them, but whether or not Bobby Roberts was cruel to Anne is a whole other matter. There are mixed feelings and it is an emotional subject, hugely polarised. But opinions about him are inevitably based on feelings towards animals in captivity in general. So for ADI and others, Bobby mistreated Anne. But for those who work in the captive animals industry and have come into contact with him, he is a misunderstood relic of a past era who had the best intentions.
Those who are now involved in Anne’s care seem to be of the belief that Bobby simply hasn’t changed while the world around him has altered dramatically. Where once the public was delighted and amazed by wild animals in circuses, there are few who would appreciate them now. And animal welfare standards have influenced and been influenced by this change in attitude. But Bobby was left behind, unaware or unable to appreciate why his methods were now no longer acceptable. Those who are now responsible for Anne’s care are almost all agreed that although the situation that she was kept in wasn’t ideal, Bobby did have genuine affection for Anne and the other animals he owned.
Jon Cracknell’s views on the subject are typical of this standpoint: ‘I’m not saying what he did was right but I think he’s of a different era and the world’s changed around him and people are more aware. I just think he lives in a bubble but I don’t think he’s malicious. I think he loved Anne and I think he still does. I think he loves all his animals, he just sees them in a different way. That’s not to say what he does is right or the use of animals in such performances is right but it is a case of saying I think you have to look at the context.’ He added: ‘I’ve seen people abusing animals and they do it because they’re malicious and evil people. I’ve seen that around the world, I’ve seen it in the UK and I wouldn’t put him in that camp.’
However, he’s less complimentary about the way she was kept. ‘I didn’t feel the Robertses were bad people or malicious, but at the same time I didn’t feel the barn..,’ he tails off. ‘There wasn’t an opportunity for her to go in and out – she didn’t have access to much outside. There was a field she could be taken down to, but I don’t know how often that was happening. So the reality was if I saw that set-up as a zoo inspector, I wouldn’t say it was acceptable long term. It depends how long she was in there for. She might be able to walk out of her paddock every day – I don’t know what the management system was so I can’t comment – but the fact she wasn’t able to walk far, and I think she spent more time in there than out, I would say isn’t great.’ Jon says that when he went to see her home, he found a big barn with a big straw bed. ‘Now the video shows something very different over three weeks, where she’s chained continually on a pallet,’ he says. When asked about her medical treatment at the circus and Bobby’s insistence that she wouldn’t take the painkillers, he simply says: ‘We don’t have trouble giving her treatment, put it that way.’
Ryan Hockley, one of Anne’s original keepers and now head of safari at Longleat, agrees with Jon’s assessment of the Robertses. When asked if Bobby was a relic from a previous age, he says: ‘Yes, he is, but I don’t mean that as a criticism but an observation. He’s a dying breed. Wild animals in circuses in the UK is a done thing, and I’m sure it’ll be the same across Europe soon, but particularly elephants in circuses. You’re not going to see those for much longer.’ He adds that he thought Anne and Bobby had a bond. ‘I truly believe he and Anne had a good relationship,’ he insists. ‘How that relationship was formed, I don’t know, but the end result seemed to be that they were comfortable with each other and he did actually care for her. That went for Anne too. She knew Bobby and he cared for her.’
Nic Masters, Anne’s vet when she arrived at Longleat, thinks that although her care wasn’t ideal when she was with the Robertses, they weren’t to blame. When I ask him what he thinks, he says: ‘I’m going to sound like a politician here. I think they didn’t look after her in the way we would look after her in a good modern zoo. I think they probably looked after her in a way that they certainly wouldn’t have thought of as cruel themselves, and was accepted practice in theirs and other circuses in days gone by. So I would have been very uncomfortable if she was still at the circus, being looked after in the way that she was, but I’m also uncomfortable being highly critical of them because I don’t think they thought they were doing anything wrong, really.’ He adds that her winter quarters were ‘limited’ and she didn’t have much ‘stimulation’.
Anne’s osteopath Tony Nevin thinks Bobby did well by Anne when she was younger but he thinks that as Bobby got older and employed other people to look after her, ‘that’s when the problems set in. They [the Robertses] certainly looked after her, you couldn’t really complain from that point of view. They treated her like a giant family pet,’ he says. ‘Bobby’s heart was in the right place. You either like circuses or hate them but he was from a completely different time when childcare, teaching, everything in this country was different and I do feel he’s sort of been targeted a little bit unfairly. He’s not a highly-educated person, he’s got a lot of practical experience and knowledge, but his physical health was failing him and he employed the wrong person to look after her. That’s his crime, if that’s what you want to call it.’
RSPCA inspector Jody Gordon echoes this sentiment. ‘Bobby was brought up in the circus and the way they treated their animals was perfectly acceptable thirty years ago, they just didn’t move with the times. He genuinely believed he was doing the right thing for his animals because that’s the way he’d been brought up. I think he understood certainly by the end that he could have done more but he was stuck in a rut and I think he genuinely believed he wasn’t doing a great deal wrong and that people were out to get circuses. I certainly never believed Bobby was cruel.’
Animal rights groups clearly disagree. ADI’s views on Bobby have already been set out at length, as have those of the Born Free Foundation. But the RSPCA’s standpoint is less clear-cut. They campaign for a ban on wild animals in circuses and yet they inspected Anne several times over the years and could find no evidence that Bobby was being cruel despite his later conviction for causing her unnecessary suffering. At times, they even praised elements of his care. They were criticised in the wake of the story for not noticing her condition before. ADI are particularly critical of the RSPCA for not doing more to help free Anne from her situation sooner so that she might have a chance of going to a sanctuary in the US. They questioned why her health issues and her inadequate medical treatment weren’t picked up during routine inspections by both the RSPCA and for a Defra consultation on wild animals in circuses. ‘We researched the Polebrook inspections of Anne,’ says Jan, ‘and she had been inspected in the barn a couple of times and nothing had been noticed.’ She adds that an RSPCA inspector had submitted reports to court but they hadn’t identified any issues. ‘For us, what was significant was you had an elephant owned by a circus, in a barn, so she was in her winter quarters. It was being inspected and nobody noticed that there was something wrong. Nobody noticed that she was chained.’
At times, the authorities even seemed to praise the Robertses’ care. In 2007, Chris Barltrop, chairman of Defra’s committee on circus animals, said they were confident Anne was in the best possible place with Bobby. ‘Independent veterinary advice we have seen suggests that her welfare needs are best met by her remaining with the circus,’ he said. ‘Allowing Anne into the circus ring to have her photograph taken will in no way affect her overall welfare. Indeed her welfare is possibly enhanced by the human contact and activity.’ The following year, RSPCA inspector Jody Gordon visited the Robertses’ circus in Huntingdon and said: ‘The animals are in good health but there are concerns, particularly about how the elephant is kept. She is chained up for a lot of the time in a cage. But the stabling conditions are generally very good and they are kept in good health.’
But despite the concerns of other animal welfare groups, the RSPCA say they simply weren’t ever able to find evidence that Bobby had committed a crime until the footage emerged. Jody Gordon says that for many years, RSPCA inspectors didn’t have the knowledge or training to assess the welfare of exotic animals. ‘Our inspectors have been visiting Bobby Roberts’ circus for many years. Unfortunately, not many of our inspectors, if any at all, are really trained in recognising the welfare signs in elephants so you’d get reports coming back from inspectors saying: “Went to the circus, saw an elephant, looked in good bodily condition. No problems.”’ He says that this approach reinforced Bobby’s conviction that he was in the right. ‘There was a genuine belief that he wasn’t doing anything wrong and that was the way it should be done and of course he never got in trouble. He was never investigated. He would have the inspectors visiting and telling him things were ok and telling him there was no investigation against him because there wasn’t.’
Another major problem was the law. The only really relevant legislation at the time was the Animal Welfare Act which required those caring for animals to meet good practice. But the reality is that no one had established what good practice was in a circus. And Dr Ros Clubb of the RSPCA tells me their lawyers were never sure they had enough for a prosecution until the footage emerged. She says: ‘No one’s established what good practice is in the circus. There was a real question mark over what is an offence in a circus environment. Legally there was doubt at our end as to whether [a prosecution] would be successful. But when it came to beating [in the footage], that was quite straightforward.’
Despite this, the RSPCA and Born Free had discussions with the Robertses about retiring her and by 2009 the Robertses themselves say they were keen for her to go to a new home. Ros says she and Jody met with Bobby around 2009 to ask him to give her up. ‘We were really concerned about her welfare and we wanted for her to be moved out of the circus environment especially because we knew she had some kind of problem with her joints,’ she says. ‘We had a chat with Bobby, who genuinely seemed to want to do the best for her, and we talked about what if a suitable home was found for her, probably in this country because he really didn’t think she’d be able to make a trip overseas. The only two elephant sanctuaries are in the States and there was concern with her age and her health whether she would survive a journey like that.’ She says he was ‘open’ to the possibility but, sadly, there were no good options available. ‘We went away trying to find a place for her and we couldn’t find anywhere. It was a difficult situation.’ Integrating her into an existing herd could be problematic given Bobby’s assertion that she didn’t like other elephants, the possibility she might have had disease and her arthritis problems. Longleat wasn’t on the radar because it was a decade since they’d had elephants.
Jody Gordon recalls Bobby saying he would allow Anne to retire. ‘Bobby told us he wanted her to go to a new home and not be travelling with him anymore which we promptly went away to do. But there was nowhere suitable. Nobody was prepared to take on an elephant of her age or introduce her to a herd. We weren’t convinced even then that she was healthy enough to go to a sanctuary in America.’ In any case, it was to take another two years before she was eventually rehomed, by which time she was into her seventh decade.
For everyone involved, the greatest mystery was that the Robertses still wanted to keep Anne despite the poor publicity she attracted and the reputation of cruelty that she gave the circus. She could do little more than pose for photographs in the ring for £6 a time, which, while it probably made a bit of money, certainly didn’t cover the cost of keeping her. The Robertses themselves say this didn’t remotely cover her upkeep. So why did they not give her up earlier? Looking back through newspaper cuttings over the years, it seems the couple always responded to this entreaty in the same way. This is a typical response from Bobby in 2005 to the Daily Mail: ‘Even if I was offered £1 million, I wouldn’t give Anne away. I love Anne. She’s one of our family. She’s like one of the children. If Anne went anywhere else, she’d miss me. She’d pine for me and die. She only reacts to me. She’s lived with us for nearly fifty years. Anne wants to be here.’
Veterinary advisor Simon Adams suggests that part of the reason for Bobby’s reluctance to give her up was his concern that the animal rights groups would claim victory. He says: ‘One of the problems when trying to broker the release of a circus wild animal is that the charities themselves – to be able to earn money and get the public to say we’ll contribute towards this – tend to portray it that they’re rescuing the animal from cruelty. This then hardens the circus’ attitude. I think this was also a small part of why he didn’t want to give her up.’ He thinks the main reason is that Bobby wanted to sell Anne and get a better replacement – something Bobby denies. So whether Bobby was digging in his heels to prevent the animal rights groups claiming victory, whether he just wanted some money for her or whether he did genuinely love her remains a mystery.
As to whether or not he was cruel to her – and, maybe more importantly, whether he meant to be cruel to her – it remains as much of a mystery. From the available evidence, we certainly can’t conclude that he is a malicious animal beater, given there is nothing but hearsay and conjecture in support of this. He played no role in the horrific beatings which shocked the nation. He did kick Anne’s trunk, but it is hardly an act of extreme cruelty. Yes, he employed Nitu, trained him and was ultimately responsible for Anne’s welfare as her owner. But there’s little to support the idea that he knew what was going on when he wasn’t in the barn and had any idea of the depths of Nitu’s cruelty towards her. Her living conditions certainly weren’t ideal but, as many of those involved in the case argue, they were acceptable when he first started in the circus. Bobby was a man of tradition, a member of a circus dynasty who was respected and revered by the show business world. To accept that everything he had learned and grew up with about animal care was no longer allowed, and that the world had changed around him, would no doubt be a difficult prospect for him. But it may be the version closest to the truth.