CONVICTED | mother and son Susan Shaw, born 10 April 1964, and Jack Wynne, born 13 November 1993, of Blakehall, Skelmersdale WN8 9AZ – starved one dog to death and seriously neglected another.
The body of French bulldog Gucci was found in a mummified state in the bath. She weighed just 3.5kg – around a third of the average weight of a healthy dog of her breed.
Officers then found Violet, who was severely dehydrated and malnourished. At 7.6kg she was also significantly underweight.
The dogs’ feeding bowls were dry and there was no water for them.
An expert vet witness said in a statement read to the court that Violet “was shaking and when offered water drank it quickly.”
A second vet who examined Violet found that she was underweight and had issues with her eyes and skin.
Within three months of vet treatment she gained over 3kg (6.6lb) in weight and her eyes and skin started to improve.
Shaw and Wynne pleaded guilty to five animal welfare offences each.
A snake and a fish were also found at the property and were signed over to the RSPCA’s care.
Sentencing | Shaw: 26-week prison sentence suspended for 18 months. Wynne: three-month prison sentence suspended for 18 months. They were both ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £154. Both are banned from keeping animals for 10 years.
CONVICTED (2023) | Richard Bailey, born c. 1967, of Sugar Stubbs Lane, Banks, Southport PR9 8DD – hit a puppy repeatedly with a metal stick during a drunken rage.
Bailey, who has a history of violence, was found guilty of causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal in addition to one count of assault and one count of using threatening language or behaviour to cause harassment or distress.
The incident took place on July 7, 2022, at the Chepstow Castle pub on County Road, Liverpool. Bailey, accompanied by a four-month-old puppy called Shadow, was drinking at the bar but after several pints became irate. As the dog grew restless, Bailey shouted at him and pulled aggressively on his lead.
After Bailey took the dog to the bathroom, barmaid Winifred O’Neill heard the dog yelping in pain. A customer went into the bathroom to investigate and saw Bailey holding his metal walking stick above his head and the dog cowering below.
The customer tried to intervene and told him to stop hitting the puppy, but Bailey shouted “none of your business”, and carried on hitting the dog. He then started swinging the stick at other customers.
In the commotion, Bailey hit Ms O’Neill over the head with the stick, causing a small bruise. When she told him she was calling the police, he responded “I don’t give a f***”.
He continued shouting abuse, throwing punches and swinging his stick around at customers.
Michelle Dwyer, who was familiar with Bailey and his dog, entered the pub and tried to calm him down, but was unsuccessful. Ms Dwyer said Bailey threatened to burn her house down. As he had previously told her he knew how to build a bomb, she was concerned for her safety.
Eventually, members of the public managed to get the dog away from Bailey, and he left the scene. Ms O’Neill informed police they were no longer needed.
However, shortly after, Bailey returned shouting “where is my f***ing dog”, before picking up glasses from behind the bar and holding them above his head as if he was going to throw them.
He continued to swing his walking stick at other customers, before they got him out of the bar again and police arrived.
The puppy has since been fostered into a new home.
Bailey’s lawyer told the court his client currently lives in a caravan with no running water or electricity and has mental health issues.
Bailey pictured in 2012
Sentencing Bailey, District Judge Wendy Lloyd told him: “I am glad that this case has had a happy ending in that this puppy has been fostered.
“You apparently still see yourself as a victim in this. You used a stick on a woman and a dog.
“You showed no love to this animal, just anger, I am bewildered that anyone who knew you gave you a dog.”
Sentencing | six months’ imprisonment suspended for 18 months; £200 in costs, £150 compensation to each victim, plus a £154 surcharge; 30 rehabilitation days; restraining order. Banned from owning any animal for the rest of his life.
#MostEvil | Jack Carter, born c. 1946, and wife Barbara Carter, born c . 1948 of Bank Bridge, Liverpool Road, Tarleton, Preston PR4 6HJ – for the prolonged mistreatment and neglect of nine horses, eight of which had to be put down.
The Carters admitted “barbaric” cruelty to nine horses.
Jack and Barbara Carter, who bred, showed and kept horses for 60 years, both pleaded guilty to three animal welfare offences when they appeared before Lancashire Magistrates in a prosecution brought by the RSPCA.
The charity said the pair neglected “every basic aspect” of care for the nine horses and kept them in a “barbaric” state.
RSPCA inspector Vicki McDonald and Lancashire Police officers went to the couple’s home on Bank Bridge in April 2021 after they had previously avoided inspections, “citing various reasons”.
Jack Carter denied there were any ponies or horses on site, but “reluctantly agreed” to show Inspector McDonald the stable behind the house.
She told the court of her shock from what she found in this stable and a further three ramshackle stables which she checked, and discovered a further three stabled ponies in a yard area directly behind the house.
Inspector McDonald said: “Inside the first stable I found a grey pony in horrendous environmental and physical condition. I had never seen anything like it in my entire career. The pony was stood on top of deep rotting litter that had built up so much that it reached the top of the stable door. The pony was unable to fully stand up and its back protruded through a hole in the stable roof.
“In addition to that, I saw that the pony had severely overgrown feet beyond anything I had seen before. The hooves extended out and corkscrewed. Further rotting litter was piled up in front of the stable preventing the stable door from opening.
“The next stable I saw housed a chestnut and white pony and across from that were two further grey ponies. The two grey ponies’ behaviour was particularly disturbing. They seemed very stressed and erratic. I noticed that all the ponies had matting to their coats. They also had patches of sore skin, most likely from having no option but to lie in their own filth.
“To say the physical and environmental conditions of these ponies was shocking is a gross understatement. As with the first pony I had found, these were also stood on deep rotting litter piled as high as the stable doors inside and also in front of the doors preventing any possibility of the stable doors opening. They all had horrendously overgrown hooves that had started to corkscrew. There was very little room for them to move around or even stand normally. Again their backs reached the stable roofs.
“It was obvious that none of these ponies had been out of their stables or been seen by a farrier for a very considerable amount of time, if at all. It was my opinion that based on what I had seen it was highly possible that these ponies had been in these stables all their lives.”
The inspector called for an independent vet to attend the site and sadly the vet advised that all four ponies would need to be put to sleep to end their suffering.
The ponies couldn’t get out of their stables due to their ill health and the build-up of filth meaning staff had to dig their way in and break down a wooden wall to get to them.
The equine veterinary surgeon said in her report that the horses were neglected in every aspect of basic requirements and stated the conditions they were kept in were “extremely barbaric”.
Inspector McDonald added: “The severe lack of care and level of suffering endured by these ponies was prolonged, wholly avoidable and totally inexcusable. It was heartbreaking to find them in such a neglectful state and for them, after such an awful life, to be beyond saving.
“These ponies were kept stabled within a few feet of the back door to the Carter’s home address. They would have seen them daily and their plight would have been ignored daily. The extreme level of neglect I witnessed, in this case, is unlikely to ever be surpassed and will remain with me.
“They were imprisoned in cramped, ramshackle and rotting conditions, forced to live and lie amongst their own faecal matter. They could not stand naturally, they could not behave naturally, graze, exercise or socialise amongst others of their kind, they were not provided with any of the necessary veterinary or farrier care they urgently required and they could not escape their confines or be accessed in an emergency.
“In my opinion, the neglect of these ponies was physically, environmentally and psychologically cruel and this had clearly been their existence for a considerable period of time.”
Jack Carter then told the RSPCA that they had two more ponies stabled a short walk away on Liverpool Road but another five ponies were found there.
They had access to food and water but they were also in a neglected state and had a range of health problems.
The horses found there were signed over to the RSPCA and were taken for an emergency veterinary examination. Four out of the five were found to be suffering to the point where the vets decided the kindest thing to do was put them to sleep.
The remaining pony was rehabilitated and will now be found a new home.
Sentencing: 12-week suspended sentences; £500 costs. Banned from keeping animals for life.
CONVICTED (2019) | Gary Sean Chadwick, born 15 January 1999, of Firbeck, Skelmersdale WN8 6PN – battered a 20-week-old kitten and left her to suffer an agonising death
Gary Chadwick pleaded guilty to causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal at Liverpool Magistrates’ Court.
He killed the grey and white kitten, named Smokey, after he hit her so hard that he caused multiple fractures, kidney damage and significant bruising.
The kitten likely suffered for “many hours” according to the vet who carried out the post-mortem.
A carer for Chadwick, who has autism and had also previously been on medication for schizophrenia , discovered the kitten after she saw her struggling to use her front legs and heard her wailing in pain before she died.
She said Chadwick was acting “shifty”, claiming the cat always made those noises when it used the litter tray.
The carer left the house and called the RSPCA to report Chadwick for animal cruelty.
When interviewed, Chadwick claimed he had only ever slapped Smokey once during her short life but said he never threw or kicked her.
David Lloyd, defending, told Liverpool Magistrates’ Court: “I don’t think he intended to deliberately hurt the kitten.”
Adding: “He has asked me to inform the court, to say he was fond of the kitten.”
Inspector Joanne McDonald said: “We will never know the exact details of how the kitten came to have these injuries but from what the expert witnesses told the court it must have been terrible.
“Smokey was only 20 weeks old and the suffering she must have endured after the attack must have been terrible.”
Sentencing: two-year conditional discharge. Banned from keeping animals for 10 years (expires January 2029).
CONVICTED (2017) | Liam Aitken, born 06/05/1993, of Rose Crescent, Skelmersdale WN8 8DW – battered a hedgehog to death with a brick
Father-of-one Aitken, then living in Wallasey, Merseyside, was spotted battering the defenceless creature by a horrified neighbour as he returned home from a late dog walk.
The outraged resident placed the dead animal in a plastic bag and wrote a note to Aitken, leaving both on his car.
Another neighbour reported dad-of-one Aitken to the RSPCA.
Aitken admitted one charge of causing unnecessary suffering to a hedgehog by crushing the animal to death, and was unable to explain his actions when quizzed by investigators.
Chris Murphy, prosecuting for the RSPCA, told the court: “The witness was in bed and woke up to the sound of thuds.
“She saw a male dressed in black. She noticed he was using a mobile phone as a flashlight to look at a mass on the ground.
“She observed the male pick up a brick and throw it on to the mass five or six times then walk towards the bins. He walked off to his house via the back gate.”
When the beaten hedgehog was found, it was still warm, but not moving.
A post mortem found the hedgehog died from blunt force trauma and had injuries including a fractured pelvis and broken legs.
When interviewed, Aitken said he thought he had thrown the brick three or four times and accepted he had caused serious injuries to the hedgehog.
Mr Murphy said: “He said he was truly sorry for his actions and had no idea why he had done it.”
Aitken wept as his lawyer told the court he had never previously harmed an animal and was remorseful.
“At the time he wasn’t in a very good place and was drinking a lot. He was extremely depressed at the time and the week before had taken an overdose. He had been arguing with his partner.
“He said he was distraught. Had he walked a different way the hedgehog would still be alive today.”
Sentencing: 12-month prison term, suspended for a year; 200 hours of unpaid work. Ordered to pay £835 in costs and attend a six-month alcohol treatment programme.
CONVICTED (2011) | Craig Alan Edwards, born June 1984, of 69 Jacksmere Lane, Scarisbrick, Ormskirk L40 9RT – left his dog with a large infected open wound believed to have been caused by a badger.
Edwards, who previously ran a pub in Buxton, High Peak, Derbyshire, was found guilty after a trial of six animal cruelty charges in relation to the unnamed dog.
Magistrates heard the dog had been kept in the upstairs accommodation which was bare, had mould, rubbish, an uncarpeted floor and dog mess everywhere.
Vets found two large substantial wounds to the lower jaw were infected and covered in a substantial amount of pus discharge. Surgery was not an option as the wound was too extensive and too infected.
Expert opinion was that the wound had been sustained in a fight with a badger.
Sentencing | jailed for 12 weeks. Banned from keeping animals for 10 years with the right of appeal after five (ban expired 2021).
CONVICTED (2010) | Keith Doyle, born c. 1975, a convicted wife beater and animal abuser previously from the village of Banks in West Lancashire and more recently (2021) of Hart Street, Southport PR8 6DY
On Guy Fawkes Night 2009 Doyle went berserk, smashing up his home and subjecting his long-term partner to a violent and bloody attack.
Then in an act of unbelievable cruelty Doyle poured scalding hot tea over the cage containing his partner’s beloved African Grey parrot, Jasper, before grabbing the squawking bird and ripping out his feathers, killing him. All of this took place while the couple’s four-year-old son was upstairs.
In April 2010 Doyle pleaded guilty to three counts of actual bodily harm, causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal and making threats to kill. He was sentenced to 16 months’ imprisonment, eight months of which was on license. He was banned from keeping pets for five years (expired 2015).
