Jailed, thug caught on film beating dog
NEIGHBOURS SPOTTED CRUELTY IN BACK YARD
A DAD who beat a defenceless dog in a ‘despicable’ attack has been jailed.
Jamie Lee Wilson, 23, repeatedly punched the pup as it yelped out in pain in the back yard of a house in Salford. The mother of his children, Chelsea Clayton, 25, who began the attack on the Staffordshire bull terrier named Bob, was spared jail because she has three young children to care for.
The RSPCA investigated when several neighbours tipped them off .
The residents near Clayton’s property on Memorial Road in Walkden had filmed the attacks.
Footage was shown to a district judge in Manchester magistrates’ court.
It showed first Clayton hitting a dog in the back yard of her property. That was followed by a ‘prolonged’ attack by Wilson who could be seen throwing the dog around and raising his fists and punching it.
The dog’s ordeal lasted well over a minute and the dog was ‘screaming, crying and clearly in distress,’ said Anna McDonald, prosecuting for the RSPCA.
At the end of the footage, Wilson was seen holding up the dog and punching it to the head.
An RSPCA inspector attended with police officers following the incident, on August 17 last year, and seized all the animals at the property for their protection. The dog had a laceration to his lip but no other injuries and no treatment was required.
Wilson, of Birch Road, Walkden, and Clayton, of Memorial Road in Walkden, were both charged with causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal.
The charges had been proved in the pair’s absence at a hearing in February.
Dean Smedley, who was Bob’s owner, was at the property at the time of the attack and ‘failed to do anything to prevent Bob from being beaten,’ the prosecution said.
Smedley, 25, of Willow Tree Court, Eccles, was convicted of two offences of failing to take steps to prevent physical violence to a protected animal and was handed a one-week prison sentence, suspended for two years, at a separate hearing at Manchester magistrates’ court earlier in May. He was also ordered to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work and was disqualified from keeping animals for seven years.
Passing sentence on the other two defendants, District Judge Sam Goozee said Wilson’s role was so serious he could only be sent straight to jail.
Wilson was jailed for 14 weeks and banned from keeping animals for 10 years.
His legal team have lodged an appeal against his sentence.
Clayton was given an eight-week sentence, suspended for a year, disqualified from keeping animals for eight years and was ordered to pay £200 costs.