Nine face dog fight charges

Six people appeared before a Lincoln court charged in connection with a nationwide RSPCA investigation into dog fighting. Seven men and two women were charged after the RSPCA raided the homes of alleged dog fighting enthusiasts in Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Birmingham and Teeside. The arrests followed alleged dog fights in the villages of Kexby near Lincoln …

Advertisement

Huntsman in court

A HUNTSMAN for the Duke of Northumberland has been charged with illegal hunting. Robert McCarthy, 34, of the Kennels, Cannongate, Alnwick, is alleged to have breached the Hunting Act of 2004 in an incident on Wednesday, November 12, 2008, at Bradford Kaims, near Belford. He is due to appear at South East Northumberland Magistrates Court …

Pet owner horrified as hunt dogs rip cat apart

AN AGEING pet cat has been ripped apart in her own garden by hunting dogs which had strayed from the main pack. And now the cat's owner is calling for the Western Hunt to make sure its pack is properly trained and under control. About 12 dogs had broken off from the rest of the …

Dog fighting pit bull owner avoids jail

The owner of an illegal pit bull terrier used in dog fighting and left without veterinary treatment has escaped being locked up. Mohammed Fedar swaggered out of West Bromwich Magistrates Court and posed gangster style for photographs after getting a 20-week sentence suspended for 12 months. Fedar, aged 20, of Westfield Road, Smethwick, was banned …

Dog fighting accused pleads not guilty

A MAN charged with 13 counts relating to dog fighting entered not guilty pleas at Grantham Magistrates Court on Thursday. John Knibbs, 44, of High Field, Harrowby Hall Estate, will now face a three-day trial at Grantham Magistrates on a date yet to be decided. Knibbs has been charged with nine charges of causing unnecessary …

Searching for the fox and hounds…

SEVENTY-SIX people have been prosecuted in England and Wales since the ban on hunting with hounds came into force in February 2005. Masked man: Main picture and left, hunt monitors patrol parts of the lake district; right, a hunting party and their beagles Not one of those prosecutions was in Cumbria. The situation is increasingly …

Hunt hounds savage pet cat

A DEVASTATED cat owner is in shock today after a pack of hunting hounds savaged her Persian cat. Judy and Brian Dawson's nine-year-old cat Edwina, known as Dween, was mauled by the dogs which burst into their garden while on a hunt in Witnesham yesterday. Today, Rob Haag, joint master of the Easton Harriers hunt …

Two convicted on hare coursing charges

A Norfolk landowner and her colleague were convicted of hare coursing today after a judge ruled their “sincere” attempt to legally beat the hunting ban had failed. Mary Birkbeck, 77, and Les Anderson, 80, were found guilty of attending and facilitating two illegal coursing events in November 2007 and January 2008. Birkbeck was also convicted …

Pair fined for badger baiting

BADGER baiters who were caught interfering with a sett in north Northumberland and found with vile videos of animal cruelty on their phones have been sentenced today. Callous Christopher Hindmarsh and accomplice Justin Lang have been disqualified from keeping dogs for three years and will have to pay £260 each for costs. They will also …

Government welfare body attacks gamebird battery cages

The government's official advisory body on farmed animal welfare has today launched a devastating attack on the systems used to mass-produce pheasants and partridges for 'sport' shooting. The Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC), in its Opinion on the Welfare of Farmed Gamebirds, is especially critical of battery cages for breeding birds. First exposed nationally by …