A Co Down man has been convicted of animal cruelty by killing a dog and feeding it to his own animal.
A jury took less than five minutes to convict Dominic O’Connor (27) of causing unnecessary suffering to a dog last December.
Formerly known as William Mocsari, O’Connor from Roden Street, Kircubbin, was remanded into custody and will be sentenced on November 21st after probation have written a report.
During the court of the two-day trial, the jury heard horrific details of how O’Connor obtained a four-year-old collie called Jess from Facebook, killed it and cooked it into a stew to feed to his own dog Shadow.
The jury heard that during police questioning, O’Connor described how he first tried to strangle Jess with a lead but because it had “too much give,” he used a different lead.
O’Connor who has a personality disorder, told the shocked officers: “I strangled it with the shorter lead. Then I cut it up and cooked some of it and fed it to the dog and put the rest of it on the fire.
“I cooked it and fed it to the other dog with a few onions and an Oxo cube and salt and pepper.”
He conceded that ordinary people would be disgusted at his behaviour and that he recognised “part of it was wrong”.
Confession
The incident came to light when he told community mental health worker and then a psychiatric nurse at the Ulster Hospital.
A friend of O’Connor also testified that she saw Jess one day but the next, she was gone and that she heard O’Connor tell his other dog Shadow: “I told you I was going to get another dog and let you taste it”.
She described how despite having committed the killing, O’Connor “was all happy and stuff... just his normal self” and he claimed he had re-homed Jess that morning.
She said he later confessed to her that he had strangled the dog, put it in the shower, and put it in the bin after she left.
“In a way he was joyful about it,” she said. “He was not all there. His head was somewhere else.”
Defence lawyer Chris Holmes submitted there was no forensic evidence before the jury and conceding “this is not a straight forward case,” confirmed to trial Judge Piers Grant the defence were not relying on a defence of insanity.
The Downpatrick Crown Court jury of eight men and four women deliberated for less than 300 seconds before returning the unanimous verdict.