The Police went to a flat in Swansea where they have found a Harris hawk and a parrot trapped in a cramped and stinking apartment. The flat’s owner, Stuart Moseley was jailed.
The initial reports were that there is an eagle kept there. But when the police officers went to the flat they found a Harris hawk in a wooden box and an Amazon Parrot on top of kitchen units. The officers also had to face an overwhelming stink of bird dropping covering the floors and the furniture in the whole flat.
Mirror reported that “At a brief trial in Swansea Magistrates Court, Moseley denied charges of keeping or confining a bird in a small receptacle — contrary to the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 — and of failing to ensure the needs of the hawk and of the parrot were properly met, both contrary to the Animal Welfare Act 2006.”
The judge, Neale Thomas found Moseley guilty on both charges and he was jailed for 8 weeks, ordered to pay a fine of £80 as well as banned from keeping any animals for 5 years
“I don’t regard this as cruelty in the old fashioned sense, rather that a man should not keep a hunting hawk and a parrot in a fifth floor flat in Swansea,” said the judge, Thomas.
According to WalesOnline “Moseley claimed the Harris Hawk, more usually found in North and South America, was only kept in the wooden box for transportation purposes and was not living at his flat but at an aviary a few miles away.”
In addition to the current criminal offences, Moseley was already subject to a suspended prison sentence in 2014. The sentence was again for animal welfare crimes, where he failed to ensure the needs of horses were accurately met.
Regardless of the Moseley’s request to stay for a fortnight in his apartment as well as the statements from his defendant, the judge said that the sentence this time is immediate.
Credits: Mirror & WalesOnline
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