Spared jail, owner who let 3 dogs cook to death in car

AN OWNER has been spared jail after leaving three dogs to cook to death inside a car for five hours in 104F heat.

Jonathan Theobald, 65, locked Staffordshire bull terrier-type dogs Daisy, Mitch and Rascal in his Volkswagen Passat with no water or ventilation while he went to the Vivacity gym in Peterborough, Cambridge.

But as temperatures rose to 66F (19C) on the morning of June 16 they rocketed to 104F (40C) inside the car, a previous hearing was told.

The animals – rescue dogs aged 10 to 13 – tried to claw their way out before dying of heat exposure.

Prosecutor William Powell told Peterborough magistrates yesterday: “These animals would have suffered immensely.

“They would have gone through stages of panic, heat stress and likely seizures and injury in an attempt to escape before dying.”

The court heard the retired journalist returned to his car to find two of the dogs dead before trying in vain to save the third using CPR.

Gym staff saw him carrying Theobald yesterday and the car park where the dogs died the dogs at around 3pm in an apparent bid to bury them. They called the police.

Theobald later told officers who caught up with him at his home in Peterborough with the dogs’ bodies still in his car: “I left them in the car too long. It is a fair cop.”

Mr Powell said the incident was one of “inexcusable recklessness” rather than “pre-planned cruelty”.

Theobald wept as Richard Brown, defending, told the court: “Until that day in June he was a model dog owner.

“He misjudged the climate and made a terrible error.” Theobald pleaded guilty to causing unnecessary suffering to the dogs by confining them in an environment that led to their death.

Chairman of the magistrates Timothy Cook handed him an 18-week jail sentence, suspended for two years, and banned him from owning animals for 10 years.

He was ordered to pay £410 costs, a victim surcharge of £115 and fined £365.