Dog died of heat in locked car

3:22pm Friday 16th May 2008

A DOG handler whose German shepherd died because it was left locked up in a car during hot weather has been banned from owning an animal for five years.

Shaun Bennett, 35, had owned the dog for five years and used it as part of his job as a dog-handling security guard.

Ian Boyes, prosecuting on behalf of the RSPCA, told Basildon Magistrates' Court how Bennett had left the dog in his dark metallic blue Volvo estate for nine hours while he visited friends.

The animal died of heat exhaustion in a car park opposite Wimbish End, Pitsea.

Yesterday Bennett of Aspen Court, Basildon, was found guilty by magistrates of allowing his dog to suffer unnecessarily.

He was also ordered to carry out 250 hours unpaid community work for breaching a suspended sentence, imposed in June 2006 for a conviction of battery, criminal damage and resisting a police officer.

However, his defence team claimed the dog was only in the car for about an hour.

Police and a vet were called to the vehicle at 4.30pm on June 8, last year, after receiving a call from a concerned resident who noticed the animal in the car.

When they arrived the dog was already dead.

When a vet later examined the dog he found it died as a result of the temperature.

Chairman of magistrates Alan Payne told Bennett: "The internal body temperature of the dog was so high it was off the scale of the thermometer, and this was nearly three hours later.

"We deem that the suffering was not necessary and therefore we find you guilty."