No, Judge, Not Your Finest Hour, Either…

On the night of December 6, his motorbike had broken down at the bottom of Muller Road, Eastville.

Bristol Magistrates' Court heard how he texted his girlfriend Kay Hill, and after wheeling his bike up to Gloucester Road, met up with her.

She had come by push bike with Deemond. But when the dog saw Roynon he was so excited he bolted and pulled Miss Hill off her bike.

The couple continued walking to Southmead, but by the time they got to Ullswater Road shortly before midnight, Roynon's patience was wearing thin. He hit the dog with his left hand, about 20 yards further along the road.

When Deemond stopped walking, Roynon lost his temper. He put his motorbike on its stand, kicked the dog and stamped on his head and shoulders three times.

Unluckily for him, he did it in full view of the CCTV cameras, and it wasn’t long before he was nicked.

Prosecuting, Paul Connell told the court that when interviewed by police, Roynon said Deemond was being "stubborn and unruly" .

"I was trying to break his spirit to train him," he said. "I had to pull him too. It was making my bike twice as heavy."

But reflecting on what he had done, he called himself an "idiot".

I suspect he meant ‘an idiot to have done it there, rather than behind closed doors’…

Mitigating, Ruth Tiley said about a month before the incident, he had been hit by a car while riding his motorbike, breaking two ribs and a tooth.

On the night in question, the rib injury was making wheeling the bike the several miles to Southmead difficult and he was finding it hard to breathe.

Yet he had enough puff in him to violently assault an animal? Oh, pull the other one, love!

Roynon was fined £100 and disqualified from keeping any animal indefinitely, however he can apply to have the ban lifted after a year.

He must also pay £85 costs and a £15 victim surcharge.

Ahh, the ubiquitous ‘victim surcharge’. Too much to hope it’ll go to an animal charity?

Presiding magistrate Ian Brailey told him: "Not your finest hour, I would say."

Nor yours – you should have jailed him.