CONVICTED (2024) | puppy farmers Alison Gilbert, born 9 March 1964, Amy Gilbert, born c. 1991, and Jonathan Roberts, born c. 1988, all of Lower Biscovillack Farm, St Austell PL25 5RE – blatantly disregarded the welfare of dogs in their care.
The trio, who bred and sold dogs under the name Halviggan Hounds, kept dogs and puppies in cold and dirty outbuildings.
Mother and daughter Alison and Amy Gilbert pleaded guilty to causing a dog suffering by encouraging another dog’s aggressive behaviour and failing to intervene to protect the dog from suffering last July; between February and April 2023 failing to provide dogs with a suitable environment with kennels being too small for the size of dogs, a build up of faeces and urine in the kennels, a lack of ventilation and the dogs having contaminated water and between July 2021 and January 2023 not protecting dogs from pain, suffering and disease by showing poor attention to protecting them from lice and worms and making no effort to broom them.
Jonathan Roberts, who is believed to be the partner of Amy Gilbert, pleaded guilty to failing to meet the needs of dogs by putting them in overcrowded kennels with a build up of faeces and urine, a lack of ventilation and contaminated water and failing to ensure the dogs were protected from lice and worms and made no effort to groom them.
Cornwall Council said the defendants showed a “blatant disregard” for the animals.
The court heard officers from Cornwall Council’s licensing compliance team carried out an inspection at the farm in February 2023 following complaints from members of the public.
They found more than 60 dogs who had not been spayed or castrated, and three litters of puppies.
The dogs were kept in draughty, cold outbuildings, which were overcrowded and dirty.
The officers also found an outside cattery at the premises housing expensive cats such as Bengals, Maine Coons and Ragdolls with matted fur and faeces stuck to their coats.
The cattery was poorly ventilated and had an overpowering smell of ammonia from urine.
Improvement notices were served which required the breeders to improve the living conditions and cleanliness of all areas where animals resided and to seek veterinary advice for underweight dogs.
During reinspection in April 2023 officers found the conditions had not improved.
Alison and Amy Gilbert’s dog breeding licence was revoked with immediate effect.
During their subsequent investigation, the officers discovered that more than 200 litters of puppies had been sold over a period of a few years.
Some of the dogs had been bred two or three times in a 12-month period.
The Gilberts also breed spotted sport horses under the name BSS Stud. Amy Gilbert competes in dressage, showjumping and eventing.
Sentencing |
Alison Gilbert was fined £368 with a £147 victim surcharge, Amy Gilbert was fined £923 with a £114 surcharge and Roberts was fined £269 with a £108 surcharge.
Amy Gilbert was also given a 12-month community order.
The court awarded Cornwall Council full costs of £12,459.
All three convicted were given a disqualification order preventing them from owning, keeping, and dealing in cats or dogs for a period of 10 years.
BBC News
Cornwall Council
CornwallLive
Additional Information
Following the sentencing hearing, standard poodle breeder Jane Rowden, based in Newton Abbot, Cornwall, shared some additional information about the case with her social media followers and wrote about her own involvement. She wrote:
Early in 2023 we (myself and other persons involved in the standard poodle breed) received a few reports, from unrelated people, not knowing what to do when they discovered a ‘reputable’ puppy breeder was not all she seemed to be.
They didn’t know how to report, nor the best way. So, with guidance and support, we proceeded to help.
On the surface this puppy farmer came across as friendly, caring, with her gorgeous, cute and fluffy puppies being photographed on lovely backgrounds, all with pretty little collars.
Behind the scenes was another matter with some of the worst abuse we have seen and, believe us, we have seen a lot over the years as the other recent posts on the 15 rescued standard poodles showed.
This court case was not connected to those, though some came from the same lines, and certainly one breeder sold to both of these puppy farmers.
So, firstly she said she was a four-star council licence holder
She was but, under a Freedom of Information request, at her last Council inspection, this was downgraded to one-star….yes, only 1 star so this told us something was amiss. But did she alter her online adverts, Facebook and Instagram puppy selling pages? Nope, she still stated she was a four-star licensed breeder.
Did the Council do anything when they downgraded her licence? Yes, they said that the puppy farmer could ONLY breed one litter a year per female on the basis of her saying she owned 6 breeding females and 1 stud dog.
Six females with only one litter per year? We knew that was unlikely but worse was to be discovered.
She didn’t have six females and one male. She had a total of 60!
Yes, 60 dogs when she said she only had seven.
Those hidden ones, it seems, were taken to a family member or out the way barns, when notified an inspection was happening, so things didn’t look so bad.
All very similar to the other greeder that starved her dogs, Leanne Upton/Smith (Destindezire) that hid her dogs in a friend’s van when she was getting inspected.
The state of these poor dogs was beyond dreadful.
Needless to say many dogs were exploited, not just standard poodles though they were truly the worst.
Crammed in unbearably tiny, overcrowded pens with disgusting, contaminated water, never let out with faeces and urine underfoot.
Nowhere to escape the filth.
Shock collars hanging waiting to be used.
Videos taken on a phone of dogs being encouraged to fight ‘to teach them a lesson’. She deliberately set it up, stood by and watched the fight and then proudly shared the video.
Dogs that fought were never given any veterinary attention, leading to horrible infected wounds and scabs.
Dogs were routinely kicked and punished for barking, hence the shock collars used, all whilst they laughed.
Matted like you can imagine the worst pelting you have seen.
Faeces and wood chips stuck hard in their coats, scurf thick on the skin as well as numerous parasites including heavy Worm burdens. Their poor bodies were completely laden with lice.
Rib and hip bones sticking out, no muscle mass through being kept penned all day and night. They were so malnourished they had been trying to survive by eating wood chippings through lack of food.
They were actually defecating wood chippings.
One standard poodle was bleeding from her vagina, having not received any veterinary attention, months after having had a poodle cross litter. She told the Council that if it was an infection it would be dead by now.
Never did they consider a vet visit might have actually helped.
They discussed shooting one unwell puppy.
The females often produced more than one litter in a 12 month period, against the law of the License.
Naturally these poor dogs were terrified of anything outside of their barren, filthy pens, exposed to the elements in open barns.
One Brown Parti was an older pup bought from a Welsh puppy farmer, well known to us for churning out standard poodles, to become a stud.
That poor young boy. It was heart-breaking to see the state he was in.
He was severely matted, caked in faeces, and had the flattest feet you ever did see on a poodle, they were like flippers, the result of being kept caged, with no exercise, his entire life.
He was an absolute nervous wreck so, instead of taking the time to help him, he was just offloaded.
Not wanting anyone to know this dog was hers it was all done via a friend as if he was a ‘rescue’. More deceit by many involved in bad breedings of a poor, frightened, exploited puppy.
We also know who they are and what they did to ‘assist’ on the quiet, who knows what story was spun in this deceit.
If a buyer actually took the time and effort to visit this out the way, half-a-mile down a rough, dirt track to the farm, then they would’ve only seen a lovely brightly painted ‘puppy room’ with no evidence of how the pups were really raised.
It all looked lovely on the adverts, the litters were numerous and they were all looking fluffy, as puppies do.
Most of the time new owners were met at the end of the country lane to hand over the puppy as the lane ‘was so rough’.
They weren’t shown the filthy sawdust and shavings the puppies were reared on in pens in open outbuildings/barns.
In WhatsApp messages they mocked and said how “disgusting the Poodles crosses were but they bring in the $$$”.
They made fools of every single buyer.
They didn’t care whatsoever what they bred just so long as they made money and made money they did.
137 litters in just 4.5 years.
So say six pups per litter at £2000+/- per pup that amounts to £1,644,000 at a conservative estimate.
They sold on three online selling sites under eight different selling IDs (not counting FB and IG) because they didn’t want everyone to know how many they were churning out, especially not the tax man!
The selling sites also provided information to the council so it was clear to see.
So once all evidence was with the Council Licensing Department, a court warrant was issued and they were raided by the council, RSPCA and the police.
We believe two dogs were removed by the Police as they were registered as stolen.
Large amounts of unaccounted for cash seized, along with mobile phones.
Trading Standards and HMRC were informed and needless to say their licence was revoked.
However, just one week later, she was advertising waiting lists for yet more poodle mix litters!
She was planning even more, different poodle mix litters, in other posts too.
She had the audacity to use her original four-star licence number to yet again fool buyers with “four-star licensed breeder” written all over the adverts.
The Council were not happy and this was also submitted for prosecution.
This person, with a nice little FB clique of breeding friends, all typically selling mostly non-standard poodle colours, including the cruel merle pattern introduction, deceived so many. But many of their friends knew and did nothing, too busy patting themselves on the back when another litter was born that they could charge ridiculous prices for.
Our breed is thankfully not very common so it’s pretty easy to find out who bred them and the breeders were told how their dogs ended up.
Here lies the difference in good breeders and those that don’t deserve to breed, never mind own dogs themselves.
One went out their way and moved heaven and earth to get their dogs back.
They were incredibly upset that they had also been fooled into thinking this was a good home.
The standard poodles were KC endorsed ‘Not for breeding’ but that doesn’t stop poodle crosses which is what happened here, naturally merle was also involved in this money making scheme, of course it was!
Anyway they did all they could to convince the puppy farmer to surrender the dogs back and didn’t give up.
They did so well and we commend them for their incredible efforts and evidence given to the court. They succeeded and should be proud of what they achieved. Those dogs are now safe, in loving homes, never again to be exploited. It’s still an ongoing road to recovery though.
Another, well let’s just say they were pathetic, couldn’t care less and did nothing. How cruel to leave dogs they bred in that condition knowing how bad things were.
Not surprising that one also sold a pup to another merle greeder to be exploited. They knew she breeds merle ‘poodles’ as it was plain to see.
This is now twice they were informed about pups they sold needing help and they ignored them.
How do they sleep at night? There’s a special place in Hell for that one and they will never be recommended.
They talk the talk but, when it comes to it, they wipe their hands of the poor pups they produced.
As said, our standard poodle breed is not very common so it’s easy to find things out, with very little searching, who is good and who will never, ever be recommended by us. They should be ashamed to allow such abuse when they were reliably informed about it.
We know who you are, you will know who you are, don’t bother trying to justify anything, you knew.
So there we have it, we are thankful for those that were concerned enough to let us know and, with our support and guidance, how to go about reporting them. Well done to them.
It took a lot of hours from us too, to match up the information, but it needed to be done in the correct manner to get to a prosecution.
We were happy to research deeper and help provide more evidence in this case and thankfully the standard poodles and others are now safe, albeit requiring months of vet care and rehabilitation.
Due to Council/RSPCA privacy rulings we didn’t know what happened to the other breeds unfortunately, though we know a few were sold off by the puppy farmers just prior to sentencing. Not just rehomed as they tried to claim.
They actually had the audacity again to sell a few of their dogs, whilst awaiting sentencing, yet again done using two new selling IDs! The Council Legal Team had that information too.
She also lied in court when the judge asked if dogs she owned had been rehomed or sold during the interval between her pleading guilty and the sentencing hearing. She said rehomed even though we know she was advertising dogs for sale. She had a current advert running for one of her border collies at the time of the hearing which was hastily removed during the lunchbreak!
They also thought they would still exploit a few males and were advertising some for stud.
There seems to be no end to their greed. We hope they have good records for HRMC.
It’s been a long 20 months, from the initial reports to the court sentencing, to get here, but we did it.
We so wanted to disclose this earlier but, for the sake of a successful prosecution, we couldn’t jeopardize it by doing so.
Patience and perseverance definitely pays however.
Whilst the temptation was to just get the dogs out of there that wouldn’t have stopped them and any rescued dogs would have been quickly replaced.
This is why going through the courts is the best way to stop these people.
To finish….
**STOP buying merle ‘poodles’ and their crosses as every single one that breeds them is as bad as this one.
There is never a good breeder of them, never.
It certainly seems to be a common denominator. Merle ‘poodles’ = 100% hellish greeders.
It’s cruel, unethical and tantamount to animal abuse to introduce merle to poodles.
If you buy from one that breeds them, even if not merle, you have supported the worst of the worst type of greeder.
*RESEARCH and research some more and always ASK breeders now if they breed/support merle ‘poodles’*
Walk away if so, find a breeder that truly loves our breed and doesn’t exploit them, or YOU are to blame for deaf and blind pups.