Ex-mayor’s animal cruelty appeal

Former Totnes Mayor Jacqi Hodgson and her husband Richard will have to wait until December to know if their appeal against a donkey cruelty conviction has been successful.

A three-day Plymouth Crown Court hearing concluded its evidence on Wednesday, but judgement was reserved until December 12.

The couple were found guilty of causing unnecessary suffering to a donkey in June, ordered to pay a total of £2,960 in fines, costs and victim surcharge, and banned from keeping equines for five years.

After the trial Cllr Hodgson said she felt they had been incorrectly advised by their lawyers not to give evidence in the case, at Plymouth Magistrates’ Court.

Ms Hodgson is a member of Devon County Council and South Hams District Council.

The RSPCA investigated after a member of the public reported concerns about Cariad, a 26-year-old female donkey the Hodgsons had owned for 18 years.

The donkey was found to have a painful case of laminitis, a crippling disease of the feet, after they returned from a month in Ireland last summer.

The Hodgsons said in a statement later: “Cariad suddenly lost considerable weight over just a couple of weeks while we were away in August.

“The RSPCA investigated and with our permission called in a vet.

“We also gave our permission for Cariad to be taken to the Donkey Sanctuary where tests uncovered that she had a large tumour in the back of her mouth and that this had probably caused the systemic cancer that would also have inflamed laminitis which was found when she was Xrayed.”