CONVICTED (2016) | Rachel McKenzie, born c. 1982, of Deyne Avenue, Rusholme, Manchester M14 5SY – kept a starved pitbull-type dog in a filthy yard.
RSPCA officers visited mother-of-two Rachel McKenzie’s home in February 2016 and found faeces in the yard where the dog, named Missy, was kept. There was no fresh drinking water and no comfortable resting area.
The dog was in a terrible condition and was suffering muscle wastage, and emaciation, Her ribs, pelvis, spine and hip bones were prominent through her skin.
She was found to be ‘unsteady on her feet’ and slept on filthy and wet bedding in a makeshift kennel.
She weighed 13.6 kilos and had been suffering for ‘at least seven days’ before her discovery.
Vets rated her health as a one out of nine, with one being emaciated, and nine being obese.
During interview, Mckenzie said she had taken Missy to an animal hospital as she had not been eating for about two months and claimed she was simply told to keep her apart from another dog she had.
She said she didn’t contact the RSPCA as she feared Missy would be ‘put to sleep’.
She said she had been ‘too ill’ to clean the yard and that she hadn’t been speaking to her partner, who usually did the job.
William Staunton, defending, said McKenzie ‘has genuine concern for the welfare of the dog now’, adding the animal was ‘placid’.
He told the court his client had been struggling with a breakdown of her relationship with a ‘violent’ partner at the time.
He said McKenze’s behaviour wasn’t ‘wilful cruelty’ but ‘omission and neglect’.
He successfully argued that his client shouldn’t be banned from keeping animals – only dogs – as her autistic son regarded a family cat as ‘a fixture in his particular firmament’.
Missy was being nourished back to health and by early March 2016 she weighed 14.95 kilos. While there was initially a question mark over her future after she was thought to be banned breed, she was later returned to her original owner.
Sentencing: 12-month community order including a 20-day rehabilitation element, and a three-month curfew. Banned from keeping dogs for eight years (expires September 2024).
Scum such as this shouldn’t keep Animals Full Stop.