Horse neglect farmer's jail term halved

AN EXPERIENCED keeper of horses jailed for neglecting one of his animals so badly it had to be put down has had his prison sentence halved.

David Loughran, 54, was sentenced by magistrates to 20 weeks in prison and banned from keeping animals for 10 years after his two-year-old horse was found in severe pain on Hillmorton Lane in Lilbourne.

He had pleaded guilty to two criminal charges under the Animal Welfare Act after failing to seek veterinary attention for the suffering two-year-old bay mare between March and June last year.

When RSPCA investigators found the horse its left hind leg was lame, and when a vet examined it the animal kicked out and its hoof flew off.

Prosecutor Gary Cook told the court the mare had been suffering for weeks with a badly infected leg. It had been left so long the only option was to put it down.

But Loughran, of Goodacre Road in Ullesthorpe, near Lutterworth, appeared at Warwick Crown Court to appeal against his sentence and had his sentence halved.

The horse's suffering was only realised when, last May, a farm labourer in a neighbouring field saw the animal was clearly lame and was almost falling down when it tried to walk.

He told his employer, and an RSPCA inspector were sent to Loughran's smallholding but he was not there, so a note was left for him.

The inspector followed that up by phoning Loughan - who had been warned in 2009 about hazards in his field - to advise him to get veterinary treatment for the horse.

On May 31 another inspector went to the field following another call from a member of the public who had reported the horse had collapsed in a shelter.

It was then the vet was called and the horse was put down.

The court heard the RSPCA’s total costs had been £5,713 up to and including the magistrates court hearing, with a further £700 for the appeal.

Jonathan Eley, defending, said Loughan was an experienced farm worker and had moved the horse into a shelter because lamination in hooves can result from over-rich grazing.

All four hooves had been affected, and although the other three had improved, he had arranged for the horse to be put down some two or three days after the vet’s visit.

Mr Eley said: "It was a thoroughbred filly bred by him from birth. He should have called a veterinary surgeon, but it is not a case where he deliberately set out to cause his horse suffering."

Mr Eley said Loughan was also banned from keeping animals for ten years, and as a result of the case his lease on the 49-acre smallholding has been terminated.

Allowing the appeal by reducing the sentence to ten weeks, Judge Marten Coates, sitting with two magistrates, ordered Loughan to pay £3,000 towards the RSPCA’s costs.