Norfolk couple avoid jail after leaving puppy with no vet treatment for fractured leg and severe burns

Two people have been given suspended prison sentences and disqualified from keeping animals for a decade after leaving their pet dog without vet treatment for a fractured leg and ‘severe’ infected and painful skin lesions, thought to have been caused by burns.

Casey Bernice Cook (DoB: 04/08/1998) of Bowers Avenue, Norwich, and Connor Andrew Donald Jeffrey Paice (DoB: 12/09/2001) of Gresham Road, Norwich - both previously of Angel Road, Norwich - appeared at Norwich Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday (8 October) to be sentenced. They had both pleaded guilty to two offences of causing unnecessary suffering to their dog, Milo, under the Animal Welfare Act 2006*.

RSPCA Inspector Emily Astilberry was called to a veterinary surgery in Norwich on 12 January after a six-month-old Staffie cross called Milo was brought in with suspicious injuries.

In her witness statement, Inspector Astilberry said: “Milo was friendly but nervous. He wanted fuss but was unsure about approaching me at first. I could see immediately that he was underweight, he was limping on his back right leg and he was covered in sores that were open and infected, oozing a smelly discharge.

“The sores started at his left ear, which was open, red, crusty and looked extremely painful. They tracked down over the back of his neck and all the way down his back, ending a few inches above the base of his tail.

“Milo was obviously in a huge amount of pain. I could see that he was struggling to settle and that his skin was twitching. When anyone tried to touch him anywhere over his head or back, he would cry out in pain and as the wounds were so extensive, this made it difficult to have any physical contact with him at all.”

Vets found Milo was covered in sores that were ‘crusting’ and filled with pus. In a witness statement, the vet said he was ‘underweight and extremely scared’.

The statement added that he had ‘extensive wounds’ which, ‘due to the severity and the stage of infection of the lesions … had not been properly looked at or looked after’. The vet said in her statement that it reminded her of dogs she had treated in South Africa which had had ‘boiled water tipped over them’.

Milo was taken into the vets by a member of the public who’d been contacted by a relative’s friend, Cook, to say her dog was really sick and needed help. She’d gone to see Milo and convinced the owner to let her take him straight to the vet, but they asked her to lie about where Milo had come from so she initially said she’d found him wandering in the road - later admitting to the RSPCA officer what had actually happened.

Last week, Cook and Paice were each sentenced to 16 weeks in prison, suspended for 18 months. They were both ordered to pay a £154 victim surcharge and were disqualified from keeping animals for 10 years.

In mitigation, the court was told that Milo had been the couple’s first dog and they could not afford his treatment, especially as they were caring for two young children.

They signed Milo over into the RSPCA’s care while investigations were ongoing and he received the treatment he needed with vets before moving to RSPCA Block Fen Animal Centre, in Cambridgeshire, to begin his journey to a new home.

After four months with the team at Block Fen, Milo was adopted by a local couple and their Labrador, Molly. He’s doing well in his new home.