A DOG owner from Burnley who left two pets to starve to death in a locked bedroom has been jailed for 12 weeks.
RSPCA inspectors had to force their way into the room at a house in Bacup where Jamie Daniel Broadbent had previously lived, Burnley magistrates heard.
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Inside the room an inspector made the gruesome discovery of the bodies of two dogs, a German shepherd called Roxy and a terrier named Cassie.
Christopher Wyatt, prosecuting on behalf of the RSPCA, told a previous hearing that one of the dogs had been dead for around ten days and the other for around seven.
The handles had been taken off the bedroom door at the property in Hammerton Square. Unopened bags of dog food were found in the bedroom.
Mr Wyatt told magistrates that the RSPCA had been called in after concerns were raised by Broadbent’s landlord after the defendant had moved out of the house around five weeks earlier.
Broadbent, now of Hobart Street, Burnley, admitted causing unnecessary suffering to the dogs between February 1 and February 28 last year. Magistrates ruled that the offence was so serious that only a custodial sentence was justified. Mr Wyatt said: “The defendant has given no other explanation than he was depressed at the time.”
Rebecca Stanton, defending, said at the last hearing that her client had been suffering from a mental-health condition at the time of the offence.
She said that the offence must have occurred following a significant episode in the defendant’s life, triggering his actions towards the dogs.
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