British police officer banned over dead dogs

October 13th, 2011 - 10:27 am ICT by IANS  

London, Oct 13 (IANS) A police animal handler in Britain who left two dogs in his car in a summer heatwave that led to their death has been banned from keeping dogs for three years.

Sergeant Ian Craven left a five-month-old puppy and a bomb detection dog locked in his vehicle outside a police dog training centre in Kent as he went for a meeting at the Olympic site in east London in June. By the time he alerted colleagues to the animals’ desperate plight six hours later, the two dogs were beyond help despite being rushed to an emergency vet, the Daily Express reported.

Outside temperatures had soared to 84F (29C) on one of the hottest days of the year. Alsatian puppy Tilly and Chay, a Belgian malinois, would have suffered an agonising ordeal as the heat inside the locked van climbed to fatal temperatures.

A police officer for 30 years, Craven resigned from the Metropolitan police following the incident. He pleaded guilty to causing unnecessary suffering.

Colleagues described how he started panicking and exclaimed “I’ve killed my dogs”, when he recalled how he had left the two.

Related Stories

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted in World |

Subscribe