Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many convictions there have been for dog fighting in each of the last two years; and if she will make a statement.

Eight offenders were found guilty at all courts of offences related to dog fighting in England and Wales in 2015.

This information was obtained from a manual review of court case files that centrally held data indicated may be relevant, and as such has not been through the same quality assurance processes as for routinely published data.

These figures relate to persons for whom these offences were the principal offences for which they were dealt with. When a defendant has been found guilty of two or more offences it is the offence for which the heaviest penalty is imposed. Where the same disposal is imposed for two or more offences, the offence selected is the offence for which the statutory maximum penalty is the most severe.

The number of offenders found guilty at all courts of offences related to dog fighting in England and Wales in 2014 was disclosed in PQ 9486, linked below, in September 2015 as requested by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley:

http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-question/Commons/2015-09-08/9486/