Guilty of Animal Abuse But No Ban For Couple Who “Need a Guard Dog”
Posted By Freelance Writers Date: 22/04 Posted Under: Animal CrueltyA couple who admitted to allowing their dog hobble around with a 10cm wide leg wound have been fined after they plead guilty to animal cruelty.
The pair, from Cambridgeshire, had to have the dog put to sleep, so serious was the injury having been neglected.
However they won’t be banned from keeping animals. Why, you might reasonably ask? Because THEY need a guard dog.
Cambridge News Online reports:Â
A MARRIED couple have been left with a £1,500 legal bill after admitting animal cruelty charges.
Anthony and Elizabeth Haynes appeared at Ely Magistrates Court, where they pleaded guilty to causing unnecessary suffering to their guard dog, Lucy.
The court heard how the couple failed to take the elderly Alsatian to the vet for seven months after she hurt her leg.
It meant the she was left hobbling around for months until an RSPCA officer inspected her at the couple’s home in West Fen Road, Willingham on January 14.
He discovered a 10cm open wound in Lucy’s leg, on which she was unable to stand. Vets decided it was better to put her down, rather than amputate the leg.
Mr Haynes, a lorry driver, told magistrates: “I regret what I done to the dog - I had her eight years and I miss her now.
“I made a big mistake - I did not realise she was in so much pain.”
He also asked magistrates not to impose a ban on the couple keeping animals because he needed a dog to protect his yard from burglars.
Magistrates agreed with his security concerns and refrained from imposing a ban.
Source
British justice. Don’t you just love it?
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Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008 at 10:30 am and is filed under Animal Cruelty. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Man allows an animal to suffer yet judge doesnt let owners business suffer in return. We need new laws.
Okay, too late now for the cruelty penalties. But, he’s now openly admitted to having the dog as a ‘guard dog’ and the magistrates agreed to not ban him for the reason that he needs another dog that same purpose. Let us hope now, that the local authority, police and any other involved person upon seeing the replacement dog without a handler in attendance at all times, reports the matter and he is swiftly brought before the courts again for offences under the Guard Dogs Act. There’s often use for the ‘Ways and Means Act.
Get an alarm system you nasty people, it’s a reasonable cost of doing business in this day and age.
Surely part of the Guard Dogs Act 1975 has still not been enacted even now after all these years?
Why do people say they are using a ‘guard dog’ when they in fact just have a dog wandering around their yards, which as Dave the Dog writes is illegal if there is no dog handler on site with it?
The magistrates should have considered what happens when there are no people there, if the dog wanders around on its own then they are commmiting an offence, if the dog is put in a pen when there is nobody present, it is not on guard, so not having a guard dog would hardly damage his business! I bet however that the dog is left to wander around in the yard when there is nobody on site, reasons that the Guard Dog Act 1975 was introduced to prevent.
Sounds like the old, leave a dog to wander around and live in a yard.
Really this couple are just animal abusers who drive lorries, if they do not maintain their animals, what must their lorries be like!