A man who inflicted horrific injuries on dogs by forcing them to fight wild mammals has been jailed – after his wife exposed his sick hobby with an accidental 999 call.
Cruel Steven Alston, 49, has been banned from keeping animals for life and sentenced to 160 days behind bars after police discovered terriers with their noses almost entirely severed at his Canterbury home.
They had been answering a silent 999 call made by mistake from his wife's mobile phone after tracing it to the address.
Alston, appearing at Folkestone Magistrates’ Court, was also ordered to pay £10,000 costs.
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Insp Cliff Harrison, from the RSPCA’s special operations unit, called Alston's actions "barbaric".
"Using terriers to hunt and fight wild animals is a sickening form of deliberate and premeditated animal cruelty," he said.
"It isn’t just the animals targeted that suffer sickening injuries, but also the dogs used in this barbaric activity.
"These injured dogs will have been put underground in the likes of badger setts and fox earths, where they would have endured the sort of encounters that left both animals with huge trauma wounds.
"No animal deserves to be used and treated in this way. I am pleased that the court clearly took a similarly strong view and has prevented the defendant from owning a dog ever again."
Kent Police visited Alston’s home in November 2013 to investigate the unanswered 999 call. When they found no one home they looked over the garden fence and saw the badly injured dogs.
They called the RSPCA, who unearthed an adapted treadmill for training dogs, veterinary drugs and digging equipment.
They also found photos of injured dogs and journals in which Alston detailed fights between dogs and wild animals over "several decades".
Alston subsequently pleaded guilty to one charge of causing an animal fight to take place and one charge of causing unnecessary suffering to three of the dogs by failing to get proper veterinary treatment for their injuries.
Pc Preston Frost of Kent Police said: "Using dogs to fight wild mammals has no place in a civilised society and is a particularly cruel thing to put an animal of any type through.
"It was immediately clear from the injuries Alston’s dogs had suffered just what he had subjected them to.
"What Alston did is completely unacceptable and today’s sentence should act as a warning to anyone thinking about following in his footsteps.
