Kieran O’Connor, 35, was banned from owning, keeping or dealing with animals for five years after he pleaded guilty to harming his pet bull-type breed called Prince
A man caught on camera throwing his pet dog over a gate has been banned from owning animals.
Kieran O’Connor, 35, was sentenced at Liverpool Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday after he was charged under the Animal Welfare Act in a case brought forward by the RSPCA. The charge sheet said O’Connor “failed to meet the need to protect his dog from pain, suffering, injury and disease by the infliction of physical abuse and emotional distress.”
O’Connor, of Parbrook Road in Huyton, in Merseyside, previously pleaded guilty to the charge on May 15. When he previously appeared at the court, O’Connor was given a community order which involved 26 programme requirement days and was ordered to pay costs of £5000 and the victim surcharge of £114.
He was also banned from owning, keeping or dealing with animals for five years under section 34 of the same act. The incident, which happened on October 1 last year, was captured on CCTV footage and went on to be widely shared across social media, Liverpool Echo reports.
The 20-second clip saw O’Connor walking his brown male bull breed dog called Prince before stopping outside his home.
The self-employed gardener was then seen picking up his dog by the skin on his back and neck, before going on to lift him up and forcibly throwing him over the fence and onto the concrete path. O’Connor then opened the gate in order to let himself in.
There have been other instances where people have been banned from owning animals. In 2023, a father and son were banned from owning animals after they superglued a dogs lips together.
Robert Mills and Jack Mills used a strong commercial adhesive in a horrific and selfish DIY effort to patch up their terrier’s wounds after they put him through an illegal fox hunt.
But after being caught, the pair were handed a suspended prison sentence and told to rehome all their other animals and give up their five dogs to the RSPCA.
Their Patterdale terrier Fudge suffered gruesome injuries after they forced it onto an illegal fox hunt. They tried to claim the injuries came after attacks from a badger or a rabbit.
Police raided their home after an RSPCA investigation and also found a lurcher with extensive scarring across its face, a large part of its tongue missing as well as a weeping nailbed on one of its paws.