A police dog handler came close to tears yesterday as, according to this story, he described the moment his German Shepherd died in his arms after he hung it over a fence by its lead and kicked it six times.
Mark Needham was quoted giving evidence at Chelmsford magistrates court, "I sat on the field and he laid with his head across my lap. I sat with him, stroking him. I noticed his head was getting very heavy. I lifted up his lips. They were very blue," adding that another officer joined him and said the dog, called Acer, was "exhausted" and should be left on his own to recover. A decision was made to take the dog to the vet. Pc Needham was further quoted as saying, "I knew he was very ill - and the next time I looked at him I just knew that he had died."
Inspector Graham Curtis, 43, who led the Essex police dog unit based at Sandon, near Chelmsford, Sgt Andrew White, 37, who was in charge of instructors at the unit, and instructors Pc Kenneth Boorman, 45, and Pc Graham Hopkins, 42, all deny cruelty.
Pc Needham, a policeman for 12 years, was cited as saying that during a dog handler refresher course at Sandon last November he was instructed to hang the dog over a 6ft fence and kick it on two separate occasions within three days. He described the treatment as "barbaric" but said he was in no doubt that if he had not obeyed orders given by his police instructor then the three-year-old dog would have been put down and he would have been taken off the police dog unit. He was cited as saying that before the course White had told handlers that if instructors ordered them to "sort out" their dogs, they had to obey or they would have to be "put down and **** off the section".
Pc Needham was cited as saying that on the second day of the course Acer had grumbled and growled at him and then bit him on his left arm "without exerting a lot of pressure". He had told Boorman, the instructor on the course, what had happened and Boorman had sent all other dogs and handlers off the field, telling Pc Needham that his dog would be "sorted out".
Veterinary nurse Saskia Gravett told the court she had been on duty at the surgery in Chelmsford where she was working last year when three police officers brought in Acer.
She was quoted as saying, "I knew Sgt White and he was in distress. He was in the hallway half kneeling with his head down and breathing heavily. Outside were two other officers who all looked quite upset. I went into the prep room and saw a German Shepherd on the table and it was dead."
The court has, according to this story, already heard that post mortem tests showed that Acer died as a result of internal haemorrhaging and a ruptured liver. The case continues.
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