A pair of Vancouver Island men have been found guilty of animal cruelty charges for starving a horse that they later hanged to death, but the SPCA says the court ruling doesn't go far enough.
A Victoria provincial court judge found David Whiffin and Clayton Cunningham guilty Tuesday of causing unnecessary suffering by failing to provide food for a 27-year-old Appaloosa gelding named Jalupae.
SPCA cruelty investigators said Jalupae was starving and extremely when a rope was tied to its neck, looped over the bucket of an excavator and the animal was hanged to death in September 2009.
However, the judge granted a stay of proceedings on charges that Whiffin and Cunningham had causing unnecessary pain and suffering by hanging the animal, reasoning that there was not enough evidence to prove Jalupae had suffered before death.
Officials with the BC SPCA are not pleased with that decision.
"This is what we feel is a huge loophole in the Criminal Code, because any reasonable person would recognize that tying a horse with ropes to a backhoe and lifting it off the ground is certainly not a humane way to kill an animal," Marcie Moriarty, general manager of cruelty investigations, told ctvbc.ca.
"I feel these people essentially got off on a technicality. Strangling a horse by lifting it off the ground undoubtedly caused that horse a great deal of distress."
The SPCA had issued Whiffin a warning about the horse's condition after visiting his Brentwood Bay farm in July 2009.
His lawyer told ctvbc.ca last year that Whiffin was left with few options after unsuccessful attempts to medically treat the horse and euthanize it. Shooting horses is forbidden in the District of Saanich.
According to the SPCA, Whiffin and Cunningham face a maximum fine of $10,000, up to 18 months in jail and a prohibition on owning animals.
"We can hope that in the sentencing, there's a reflection of the severity of these people's actions," Moriarty said.
