A 54-year-old man who cut and burnt a hedgehog in Wales got six months in prison. The animal was still alive when police arrived at the horrific scene. He was put to sleep at the vet because of the extreme pain he was in.
The man killed the animal in a tent in August 2019. Police were called to the woods in Blackwood after neighbors heard a woman screaming for help, which turned out to be the man himself mimicking a woman’s voice.
In the tent, police found a pair of scissors, candles, jump wire, and a kitchen knife. Police first thought that the hedgehog was dead, but after closer inspection, the animal was still alive and was taken to the veterinarian.
At the vet, they noticed that the hedgehog’s hind legs were completely broken, and one of the front legs was missing. The other was barely attached. His face was covered with candle wax. The spines around the top of the head and the sides appeared to be burnt.
Inspector Simon Evans from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) said: “It is just beyond belief that someone could do this to a defenseless creature and cause so much suffering. To think that this hedgehog was alive through this ordeal is just horrifying.”
“This case is certainly one of the worst examples of animal cruelty I’ve ever seen,” he added.
The man denied the charges, but the court found him guilty of offenses under the Animal Welfare Act 2006 and the Wild Mammals (Protection) Act 1996.
In 2006, the man went to jail for two years for killing his flatmate. “It’s a cluster of bad behavior. People who are anti-social and aggressive with one being will be the same with another being,” psychologist Mary Lou Randour from AWI told The Animal Reader earlier about the link between violence to humans and animals.
She emphasized that it’s important to monitor who harms animals because “the behavior is being aggressive and anti-social. And that behavior could be expressed against a human, adult, a child or an animal”.
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