Thug dumped pet dog’s body in bin
BY DAVID MEIKLE A HEARTBROKEN pet lover wants her own brother jailed for strangling her beloved dog and dumping his body in a wheelie bin.
Anne Marie McGinnes said she was traumatised and would never speak to her brother Sean again because of what he did to her rottweiler, Tyson.
She added: “I can’t bear to think what poor Tyson endured at that monster’s hands.”
McGinnes, 34, is awaiting sentence for killing Tyson and causing fear and alarm to Anne Marie, 32.
She said: “He should be jailed. Anyone who harms pets or animals should receive jail.”
McGinnes killed Tyson in January last year after flying into a rage at Anne Marie’s home in Newmains, Lanarkshire.
He took Tyson without permission, provoking an argument with his sister, then started shouting and threatening to harm the dog.
Anne Marie recalled: “He brought Tyson back to my door in a bin, already passed away, with his jumper around his collar.
“I really don’t know who he is any more, even if I did at all. I wouldn’t give him the time of day again because of the evil crime he has committed.”
McGinnes went on trial at Hamilton Sheriff Court, where he denied killing Tyson and added to Anne Marie’s trauma by claiming she had set him up.
She said: “All the lies he told were disgusting but I had to see justice done for my boy.”
Sheriff Linda Nicolson told McGinnes she found the prosecution case “entirely believable”. She added: “The dog was found discarded in that bin which you had been seen with, and there can be no doubt you were responsible for its death.
“A jumper belonging to you was found inside the bin, on the dog.
“You were asking me to believe that you had effectively been set up by your sister but that is not how I took the evidence.”
McGinnes was found guilty of asphyxiating Tyson, causing him unnecessary suffering and killing him, and of causing his sister fear and alarm by shouting, threatening to harm Tyson and then killing the dog.
The sheriff bailed him to await sentence in April and said: “Make no mistake that, given your record, it is very likely that a custodial sentence awaits you.”
Anne Marie gathered nearly 1700 signatures on an online petition calling for tougher penalties for animal cruelty. She wrote: “My dog was murdered. Let’s get justice.”