Nairn man who starved American Staffordshire bull terrier to death is jailed
A Nairn man who allowed a dog to starve to death after being asked to look after it for its owner has been jailed for seven months.
Brian Farmer (25), of Church Street, Nairn appeared at Inverness Sheriff Court in July last year and pleaded guilty to causing the dog unnecessary suffering by failing to provide it with access to food or water whereby it starved to death.
He also admitted abandoning the dog.
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Farmer was sentenced to 250 hours of unpaid community work and to remain under social work supervision for a year. But Inverness Sheriff Court was told that he failed to co-operate with the community order and it was breached.
When he appeared before Sheriff Eilidh Macdonald for sentencing on the original cruelty crime, she revoked the order and replaced it with the prison sentence, such was her disgust at the offence.
At the earlier hearing, the court heard that the American Staffordshire bull terrier named Duke chewed anything that was in the house including a sofa, its foam filling and food tins in a vain battle to survive.
Other household items had also been chewed as the one-and-a-half-year-old canine struggled to stay alive in its unheated accommodation between September 23, 2021 and February 4, 2022.
When its skeletal and decomposing remains were the subject of a post mortem, Duke weighed only 14kg, roughly half what an adult dog should.
When he first admitted the offence, Sheriff Ian Cruickshank was on the bench and he was clearly shocked.
He told Farmer: "It seems this is an incredible act of cruelty towards an animal on your part."
Fiscal depute Naomi Duffy-Welsh told the court that Highland Council officials had broken into the property after it had been left unoccupied for some time.
"Because of the state it was in, industrial cleaners were called in and they found the dog,” she said. “The Scottish SPCA were then informed on February 4 and it was obvious it had been dead for several weeks.
"Duke was lying on the floor near a chewed up sofa and the room had various other chewed up items, including food tins, packets and the sofa's foam."
