A MAN who threw a Yorkshire terrier dog out of a first-floor window has had his appeal against his 18-week jail sentence rejected.
A judge has told Nathan Kendrick from Wrexham that it was a “despicable and unpleasant” act.
Kendrick hurled the animal out of a bedroom window in front of his former partner Lucy Lewis and her two children, Mold Crown Court heard.
He then came out of his property and attacked Ms Lewis, almost pushing her in front of an oncoming vehicle.
Judge Rhys Rowlands said the sentence imposed by a district judge in North East Wales Magistrates Court on January 23 was correct and reflected that Ms Lewis had been targeted and was in fear of suffering serious injury.
At the Mold magistrates court Kendrick admitted assaulting Ms Lewis by beating and causing unnecessary suffering to an animal at Weatherstone in Wheatsheaf Lane, Gwersyllt, on July 11 last year.
He had been in an “on/off” relationship with Ms Lewis which she broke off two weeks before the incident.
When she went to collect her son from a nearby playing field, Kendrick followed them home and took the dog off the lead and said he was “going to hang the dog on Gwersyllt railway station”.
When she rang Kendrick later he told her it was “dead”.
She went round to his house and watched as Kendrick threw it from the bedroom window.
Fortunately the pet escaped the ordeal unscathed.
But prosecutor Dafydd Roberts said: “The children were crying after seeing it all and then he (Kendrick) screamed and began pushing Ms Lewis. She fell over on three occasions, but he continued to push here and she said that at one stage she was nearly knocked over by a car.”
Kendrick, 25 of Wheatsheaf Lane, Gwersyllt was told by the District Judge Gwyn Jones when he was jailed that it was “more in luck that the dog was not maimed or killed”.
But his barrister, Matthew Curtis, argued Kendrick had been treated harshly and a community sentence would have been more appropriate.
“These are unpleasant and cruel offences as part of what he says was a ‘bad break-up’.
“There were a number of pushes on his former partner, but this was of lower culpability and the starting point is a medium-level community order,” said Mr Curtis, who asked that Kendrick be resentenced for both offences.
“It was a deliberate action to throw the dog out of the window, but fortunately there is no evidence that the harm was greater.
“He (Kendrick) has spent two weeks in custody in Altcourse and HMP Berwyn, but his pre-sentence report identified programmes that would prevent offending of this sort.”
But Judge Rowlands, sitting with magistrates, said: “We are firmly of the view that the district judge was correct.
“This was a particularly unpleasant incident.
“He took the family pet back to his house and threw it out of the window in full view of his former partner and two young children.
“He then left the house and started to push her around. It was controlling behaviour and he was “showing who was boss”.
“There was greater harm and culpability.
“The maximum sentence in the lower court was six months and he was given full credit (for his pleas).
“His antecedents show a worrying lack of control and threatening behaviour and violence.
“There is nothing wrong with the sentence. It remains 18 weeks.”
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