Thursday 25 July 2019

I Pity The Goldfish...

Former magistrate Melvyn Hall, 71, said the dog had been ‘getting on his nerves’ because she kept ‘following him around’, the RSPCA said.
So of course, he hit his 'beloved pet' over the head with a hammer, strangled it, then dumped it in the nearby river. As you do.
Appearing at Teesside Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday, the former NHS worker from Ashfield Mews in Wallsend was handed an 18-week prison sentence, suspended for a year, after admitting two counts of causing unnecessary suffering under the Animal Welfare Act.
Former magistrate AND former NHS worker, eh?
It also said he was given a lifetime disqualification on owning all animals other than goldfish, and told to pay £1,000 in court costs.
Why the bizarre exemption for fish?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Have you ever tried hitting a goldfish with a hammer?
Penseivat

Anonymous said...

Maybe that's how we get the lumpy goldfish?

Anonymous said...

Should have self-identified as a woman, and then he'd have a pussy pass and could have walked free - like Sally Challen who murdered her husband with a hammer ...

MTG said...

Proceedings against magistrates and police are rare because the CPS can usually find excuses to bin these cases. Witnesses are deemed 'unreliable'; the evidence 'goes missing' or there are those many 'legal technicalities'. But for those cases so outrageous that CPS could not risk widespread criticism for failing to act...and if you could take a packed lunch, I would thoroughly enjoy some time spent in the public gallery watching hypocrites feigning contempt for their own.

Feral said...

@ Penseivat.
How else would you get battered fish?

JuliaM said...

"Have you ever tried hitting a goldfish with a hammer?"

Good point! :D

"Should have self-identified as a woman..."

I expect we will indeed see more of this in the future!

"How else would you get battered fish?"

*groans*