A MAN has been jailed and banned for life from keeping and owning animals following a barbaric attack on hand-reared chickens on an allotment.
Former soldier Jack Handley, one of those responsible for killing, burning, stabbing, punching and tossing chickens in the air, was sent to prison for 18 weeks.
Rhys Tomlinson, who could have stopped the carnage but did not because he did not want to be a 'grass', was ordered to do 100 hours of unpaid work.
Both of them have been given two-year bans on going to the allotments in Roberts Street, Cudworth.One of the chickens had its head pulled off, another was sent 15ft into the air after being stabbed with the spikes of a garden rake, said Chantel Lowry Green, prosecuting.
Handley, 20, of Thruxton Close, Cudworth, admitted causing unnecessary suffering to seven chickens. Tomlinson, also 20, of Summerdale Road, Cudworth, admitted criminal damage.
He was ordered to pay £85 in costs, a £60 victim surcharge and £5 in compensation.
** The full story appears in the Barnsley Chronicle, dated August 15. **
