CONVICTED (2019) | Kharled Radman, born 1 June 1980, of Smithdown Road, Liverpool L15 2HD – caught on camera terrorising a dog with a stick to show he was “head of the pack”
Company director Radman pleaded guilty to causing unnecessary suffering by inflicting intimidating and abusive behaviour on a Mastiff-type dog named Achilles.
The father-of-two was filmed banging on his dog’s kennel on March 11 , 2018 in an upsetting video clip captured by a neighbour.
Radman claimed he was trying to get Achilles, to drop a dead rat, but the footage shows him terrorising the dog by hammering his kennel.
After the incident, which took place at Radman’s partner’s house on Manor Road in Wallasey, the RSPCA attended and found Achilles outside in a small paved area at the rear of the property surrounded by one or two days of faeces. There were two bowls containing dry food with a brown liquid in it.
Achilles was 5 kg underweight when he was seized and had pressure sores on his body from laying down for long periods in his outside kennel – which was not weatherproof.
The court heard that Radman had owned Achilles for eight years after taking him in as a puppy.
Pleading with the magistrates to let him have Achilles back, Radman said: “I’ve had that dog since it was born and I’ve never hit that dog. Even as a baby I never slapped his nose. I was trying to get a rat off my dog.
“I do accept that at one point I was getting aggressive and frustrated but I was never aggressive to my dog.”
He added: “It would have been wrong of me to leave him chewing on a rat and my missus would have killed me if I left him chewing on it.”
“If you are going to take Achilles away from me there’s nothing else that matters to me. I will do anything you say please just don’t take him off me.”
However, prosecuting on behalf of the RSPCA, Chris Murphy described the chain of events that led to Achilles being taken away.
Mr Murphy said: “On March 11 a witness, Miss Kay, woke up at 8.30am and heard what sounded like shouting from her neighbour’s yard.
“She looked out from her toilet to the rear yard and saw the defendant slinging things around the garden, shouting and swearing aggressively.
“He then picked up a stick and started hitting down on the floor, saying ‘I’m going to rip your head off, get out here now. I’m going to kill you.’
“She saw him poking the stick in the kennel then went back to the bedroom to get her phone to record what she saw.”
During police interview, Radman was quizzed over the video his neighbour filmed of the incident.
Mr Murphy said: “[He told officers] He wanted to get the dog to drop the rat so he was hitting the kennel to make him drop it. He said he was trying to assert himself as head of the pack.”
A local vet who examined Achilles after he was seized said the incident would have caused “psychological fear and distress”.
Sentencing | fines and costs totalling £995, which he will pay off in £50 monthly instalments. Banned from keeping animals for just two years (expired).
I hope that is 5 monthly installments and not as it reads £5 monthly
Well spotted. It should’ve read £50 monthly installments.