A Larne man who bludgeoned a young dog to death just because it was barking has been jailed for three months.
Jailing Michael McAllister at Ballymena Magistrates Court, District Judge Nigel Broderick told the 51-year-old that to have caused the death of Marley the Chihuahua was a “terribly cruel thing to do.”
He told McAllister that to have battered the young dog to death “out of some sense of frustration with it because it was barking is wholly unacceptable.”
On the day his contest was due to start McAllister, from Glynnview Avenue in the harbour town, entered guilty pleas to theft of a dog and causing unnecessary suffering to it on August 4 last year.
A prosecuting lawyer told the court how police were called to an address in the town “over a report of a dog being killed” and when they spoke to Marley’s owner, she told them how McAllister had been in her flat “in an angry state.”
“The dog was barking and he lifted the dog and left the flat,” said the lawyer adding that two witnesses contacted police to report they saw the defendant with the body of a “limp, dead dog.”
According to Marley’s owner, McAllister had declared “on numerous occasions....that he would choke the dog if it didn’t stop barking.”
Although initially taken to the cells, following a defence application, McAllister was freed on £500 bail pending an appeal of the sentence.