CONVICTED (2017) | serial dog abuser Nijamul Islam, born 19/02/1973, of 91 Farm Road, Edgware HA8 9LR – kept dozens of large-breed ‘protection’ dogs in cramped, dirty conditions and without food or water
Persistent animal abuser Nijamul Islam was first convicted of dog abuse on a massive scale in November 2012. Then trading as the Vardalu Pet Hotel based in Elstree, Herts, Islam was convicted of cruelty to 173 dogs and puppies, including Rottweilers, German shepherds, Belgian malinois and American bulldogs. He was given a two-year suspended prison term and banned from keeping dogs for 10 years.
In October 2014 the authorities discovered he was keeping 102 dogs at Woodhill Farm, Stanstead Road, Great Amwell SG12 9RN after a kennel maid was attacked by a Belgian shepherd and a German shepherd. The victim was rushed to hospital with life threatening injuries and required surgery to save her arms.
The two dogs concerned were later destroyed due to their “extremely aggressive nature”.
Both police officers and officers from the RSPCA entered the farm later on the same day where they discovered more than a hundred dogs being kept in “squalid” conditions.
Judge John Plumstead was told several people worked at the farm, where dogs to be used in the security industry were allegedly trained.
The judge was told the conditions for the animals were ‘appalling’ with filthy cages covered in urine and faeces.
The animals, some of which were puppies, had inadequate bedding and no access to clean water or food.
There were also dead dogs on the site.
Of the dogs found within the farm, 40 had to be put down either because they were deemed dangerous by the RSPCA or had severe medical conditions and were suffering.
RSPCA inspector Steph Law said: “The conditions the dogs were kept in were horrendously squalid. It was filthy and most of the dogs had been left without food and water.
“Sadly we also found that a number of the dogs were very badly injured and had been left to suffer without veterinary treatment.
“It was sickening to see the scale of suffering as we worked with the police over four days to remove the dogs and bring them into boarding.”
Judge Plumstead said Islam had an ‘appalling track record’ for neglect and cruelty to animals.
He said: ‘These were not everyday dogs. They were all large and potentially violent dogs.
‘These dogs were kept in dreadful conditions in a way which could only be described as scandalous.’
He said he had also seen a training video seized from Islam’s business, which showed him setting a large Alsatian-type dog across a field to attack a man wearing a bite suit.
Judge Plumstead said the dog had been ‘biting determinedly and with considerable force until it was called off by the defendant’.
He said: ‘This was not a legitimate business because he was in no position to legally be doing what he was doing.’
In July 2017 Nijamul Islam was jailed for two and half years after pleading guilty to two charges of being in charge of a dog which was dangerously out of control.
Islam also admitted being in breach of an order disqualifying him from keeping dogs and four charges of causing unnecessary suffering to dogs.
Sentencing: two-and-a-half year jail term. Continuation of his original 10-year ban on keeping dogs imposed in 2012 (expired 2022).