A Hartlepool man inflicted horrific injuries on a cat after becoming annoyed at what he perceived as her disobedience.
Thomas Wade, 27, of Park Avenue, Hartlepool, admitted one charge of causing unnecessary suffering to an animal when he appeared at Teesside Magistrates' Court on Friday, 4th September 2020.
Causing unnecessary suffering to an animal is an offence under section 4 of the Animal Welfare Act 2006. It has a maximum penalty of 26 weeks' custody and/or an unlimited fine on summary conviction.
Stuart Haywood, prosecuting on behalf of the RSPCA, outlined the circumstances of the offence to the court.
Mr Haywood explained that Wade had received the cat, Sweetie, as a gift from his sister, who thought it would be good for him.
On 8th October 2019 Wade went to his sister's home to tell her that Sweetie, who was with him on a 3 week trial period, was no longer wanted.
Wade's sister went around to his home where she "smelled a strong smell of burning".
"The defendant (Wade) was sitting on a settee and the cat was wet and breathing rapidly, he refused to say why," Mr Haywood said.
Investigating the source of the smell, Wade's sister found burnt cat fur in the oven.
Wade eventually admitted to his sister that he had put Sweetie in the hot oven, before attempting to flush her down the toilet.
Wade's sister immediately contacted the RSPCA. Sweetie was taken to a vet, where she was found to be in a "terrible condition".
The young tabby had sustained significant third-degree burns, but miraculously survived the horrific catalogue of abuse inflicted upon her.
Wade was arrested and chilling voice recordings were found in which he described his abuse of Sweetie.
In one recording he described how he had strangled Sweetie with a cord and thrown her against a wall.
In another he said "no one can be more evil than myself" and said he wanted to "rip out its tongue" after seeing her struggle while being "choke slammed".
He also referred to himself as "evil Tom".
During a police interview Wade admitted throwing Sweetie "against four walls", claiming he could hear the voice of WWE wrestling character, Kane, in his head.
He admitted putting the terrified cat in the oven "on high for five minutes" after throwing her against a wall, saying he had become infuriated at Sweetie for "disobeying" his orders not to go under his bed.
Showing not one ounce of remorse, he added that Sweetie "had not suffered enough".
The court heard that Wade had not been diagnosed with any mental health problems, but did have autism and learning difficulties.
Matthew Agar, mitigating, said the incident was "shocking", and said he "did not want to minimise" the offence.
He suggested that Wade's learning disability was a "contributing factor" and expressed concerns about his client's welfare and state of mind.
District Judge Helen Cousins described Wade an "extremely dangerous man", adding that she would liked to have "put him in prison for as long as I could".
She sentenced him to 18 weeks' custody suspended for 2 years, with a 26 week mental health treatment requirement, up to 30 days rehabilitation activity requirement and an 18 week curfew.
He was also ordered to pay a total of £440 (presumably towards prosecution costs and the victim surcharge).
There will be people reading this - probably a significant proportion of people - who are thinking "so why didn't he get immediate custody?"
The Judge will have very good reasons for her sentencing decision, but as is typically the case they have gone unreported by the media. Remember that the court has several objectives in sentencing, of which the punishment of the offender is but one.
I suspect her logic was something along the lines of: here is a defendant that clearly has significant mental health issues, which would be better addressed by close supervision and treatment within the community instead of in prison.
Of course throwing Wade straight into prison would have served as a punishment, but would have achieved very little in addressing his underlying problems.
As a general rule of thumb - certainly with the relatively short custodial sentences available to the Magistrates' Court - you don't send offenders to prison to make them better people.
My personal opinion is that the maximum penalty for the offence of causing unnecessary suffering to an animal is nowhere near sufficient.
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