Carbury man jailed for neglect of greyhounds
A CARBURY man was jailed after two starving greyhounds were rescued from his home by the ISPCA.
Judge Desmond Zaidan described the animal cruelty case before Kildare District Court last Thursday as disturbing.
Twenty-year-old Thomas Daly, of Ticknevin, Carbury, pleaded guilty before the court to two charges of cruelty to animals.
Along with the sentence and fines, he was also told he would never be allowed to keep animals for the rest of his life.
ISPCA inspector Conor Dowling told the court that on October 7 last year, as a result of a phone tip-off, he and two gardai inspected the property at Carbury where Mr Daly lives with his parents.
They found a white female dog shut into a dirty cattle trailer. Another dog was living in a pen alongside with no shelter and which was strewn with faeces.
Photographs of the dogs submitted to Judge Desmond Zaidan showed the visible spines of the dogs.
"They are desperate, they are really bad," commented the judge. "You can literally count every single bone on these dogs."
"The cattle trailer was filthy and Mr Daly said that he had no opportunity to clean it out in two weeks," said the inspector.
When questioned, he said that in his 11 years with the animal rescue service, the condition of the dogs was among the worst he had seen.
Mr Dowling said that the two dogs had been taken to a greyhound rescue centre in Offaly before they were rehomed as pets.
A vet's assessment said that nutritional neglect was the cause of their poor state.
Tattoos on the dogs indicated they had been bred for racing, but there was no current records of their ownership. The ISPCC had informed the Irish Greyhound Board of the dogs' situation, and they were conducting their own investigation.
Giving evidence, Garda Bracken said Mr Daly had no skills or schooling and had never come to the attention of the gardai. He lived with his parents in a remote spot by the canal.
The 20-year-old defendant told the court that he had not been at school for six years, and did occasional manual farm work.
He said he had come into the possession of the dogs when a friend rang and asked if he wanted the animals. Already the owner of a lurcher, he agreed and the friend left the dogs at the top of the lane. He had had the dogs for about two weeks before the inspection, when he signed over ownership to the ISPCA.
He told the court that he had spent E42 on worm doses for the animals.
Mr Daly said that at the time he owned the greyhounds he had been working from 5.30am in the morning to 10.30pm at night.
He said he did not know why he took the dogs, and agreed he was ashamed of himself at their condition.
He claimed that he walked the dogs, and he fed them dog nuts in the morning and his mother fed them at night.
"They got in a bit better condition than when I first got them," he said.
Defending solicitor Conal Boyce told Judge Zaidan that his client had made a mistake outside his comprehension level, and that he doubted that Mr Daly had the mental capacity for cruelty other than neglect.
"There is no element of malicious, deliberate cruelty here," he said.
However, Judge Zaidan said that "in a nutshell, this man was effectively starving these two dogs".
He described the case as "difficult and disturbing".
"The accused stands there as a pathetic figure, he may or may not have had full comprehension of what the case is about. He can hardly look after himself, never mind dogs," he said.
He sentenced Mr Daly to three months in custody on each of the charges, to run concurrently, and ordered that while in detention he be assessed and receive counselling from a psychologist regarding cruelty to animals. He disqualified him from keeping dogs or any other animal for life.
He also fined the defendant E750 on each of the two counts and ordered him to pay the ISPCA expenses of E454.26.
Judge Zaidan refused Mr Boyce's appeal for his client to be sentenced to community service at an animal rescue shelter. "I do not want to let him go to the Midlands prison and kick his heels and watch people take drugs," said the solicitor.
However, Judge Zaidan refused, saying: "While he is a sympathetic figure, the offenses are horrendous."
Recognisances were fixed in the event of an appeal.
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Thursday 17 May 2012
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