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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many people have received (a) a fine and (b) a custodial sentence of less than six months for animal cruelty offences.

The number of offenders found guilty and sentenced for offences under Sections 4 to 8 of the Animal Welfare Act 2006 in England and Wales from 2014 to 2016 is shown in the table. It should be noted that these figures pre-date the latest Sentencing Council’s guidelines which were introduced in May and, in the case of animal cruelty offences, allow magistrates more flexibility with regard to imposing penalties towards the upper end of the scale.

(1) Defined as being SS4-8 Animal Welfare Act 2006; (2) 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 the offence for which the heaviest penalty is imposed. Where the same disposal is imposed for two or more offences, the one selected is that for which the statutory maximum penalty is the most severe; (3) every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, this data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by the courts and police forces, so care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when the data is used; (4) the number of offenders sentenced can differ from those found guilty, as a defendant found guilty in a particular year, and committed for sentence at the Crown Court, may be sentenced in the following year.

Source: Justice Statistics Analytical Services - Ministry of Justice