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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many prosecutions under section 4 of the Animal Welfare Act 2006 resulted in a prison sentence in (a) 2014, (b) 2015 and (c) 2016.

The numbers of prosecutions, those which were found guilty and sentenced, and those which resulted in prison sentence under section 4 and 9 of Animal Welfare Act 2006 can be viewed in the table below.

Court proceedings data for 2016 are planned for publication in May 2017.

The table includes the following offences:

1. Animal Welfare Act 2006 Section 4(1)(2), 32(1)(2), 9.

2. The figures given in the table 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.

1. Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by the courts and police forces. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used.

1. The numbers of offenders sentenced and found guilty in the same year may differ due to some being sentenced the following year.

   Source: Justice Statistics Analytical Services - Ministry of Justice. PQ 60104 & 60113