CONVICTED (2015) | gypsy traveller Anthony Barnett Astles, born 10/06/1973, of Holt Lane, Halton, Runcorn WA6 2AY – left a Great Dane to starve to death in a caravan toilet.
The caravan was kept on a pallet yard and it was only after a recently recruited worker stumbled upon it that the dog’s emaciated corpse was found.
The Great Dane, known as Neo, had been locked in a tiny caravan toilet and starved and the floor was covered in excrement.
Inspector Nadine Pengilly said: “In ten years of being an inspector this is the saddest thing I have ever seen. He was such a big dog and he was just shut in that tiny room, it was filthy and full of excrement.
“He had starved to death and he must have spent four to six weeks waiting for someone to come and rescue him.
“Thinking about how Neo must have suffered is incredibly sad.”
Unemployed Astles – a member of the travelling community – pleaded guilty to one charge of causing unnecessary suffering to Neo between January 31 and February 28, 2014.
Sentence: Astles was sentenced to a 14-week custodial sentence and a lifetime ban on keeping animals as well as an £85 surcharge.