Convicted Animal Abuser runs for Election

EGAR

The initial case:

Disgraceful

http://www.limerickleader.ie/news?articleid=4902349

Limerick farmer gets four months in jail for cruelty


Richard Smith at Limerick District Court yesterday afternoon. Pic: Dermot Lynch

« Previous « PreviousNext » Next »View GalleryADVERTISEMENTPublished Date: 22 January 2009
By David Hurley
A FARMER received a four-month jail sentence this Wednesday after he pleaded guilty to charges relating to what was described as "one of the most horrendous" cases of animal cruelty to ever come before Limerick Court.
Richard Smith, 48, of Lemonfield, Crecora pleaded guilty to three charges relating to the discovery of a number of dead calves and two malnourished cattle on his farm last March.

An inspector with the Limerick Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Noel Shinners, told the court he called to the farm on March 15, 2007 after he received an anonymous phone call from a member of the public who claimed that a cow had been dragged with a rope to an outlying area of the farm a week earlier.

Mr Shinners said that when he arrived at the farm accompanied by members of the gardai, he located the cow which still had the rope tied around it. He told the court the "whole of its back was rotting."
Garda David Godfrey, Roxboro, said he believed the rope had been tied around the hind legs of the cow before it was dragged to the area where it was found.

The court heard that another cow, which was found in the yard of the farm, was "very very thin and malnourished." The two cows were still alive on the day in question but they were shot by Mr Smith's own vet who was contacted by gardai. The decaying carcasses of five dead calves were also found at a number of locations on the farm on the same date.

A veterinary inspector with the department of Agriculture, May Humphries, said she had been closely monitoring the farm since last March. She stated that a total of 15 dead animals had been removed from the farm since and she said she believed Mr smith could not cope with the demands of running a dairy herd. "Although things have improved (since last March] I have reservations about his management of cows. He is a lone operator and he is poorly equipped to manage a dairy herd," she said.

Solicitor John Herbert, for Mr Smith, described the conditions on the farm last March as "appalling" and said there was no defending it. "It is a family farm and he lives alone there and he grew up on a dairy farm and he has a historical attachment to it," he said, adding: "he is slowly beginning to accept that he cannot continue with the farming enterprise."

Judge O'Donnell was told that Mr Smith, who runs a successful business away from farming, had since carried out development works at the farm and that there was a vast improvement compared to March of last year. "He is doing all in his power to avoid a recurrance of what happen in March 2008," said Mr Herbert.

In imposing sentence on Mr Smith, Judge O'Donnell said: "there is clear evidence from the photographs I have been shown that these animals were the subject of abject and awful conditions."

The judge added that aspects of the case were "utterly awful" and he said: "it is manifestly clear that the pain and suffering in this case was as a result of the deliberate and appalling conduct of the defendant."

He imposed a four month jail sentence on Mr Smith, which is take effect from February 18. He also imposed fines totalling €2,500 and he ordered him to pay €1,000 towards the costs of the LSPCA.

Judge O'Donnell added: "I think these animals should be taken from the farm as soon as is possible and arrangements should be made to care for them somewhere else."

Mr Smith was granted leave to appeal the severity of the sentence imposed on him.

Limerick Leader
A COUNTY council election candidate has defended his right to run for office after an animal rights group mounted an opposition campaign because he is currently appealing a jail sentence for animal cruelty.
Richard Smith from Crecora pleaded guilty in January to several charges relating to conditions on his farm in March 2008 and was sentenced to four months in prison, which he is appealing.
“I put my hands up and pleaded guilty. I'm not like some people, hiding from things,” he said, adding that “it's a free country” and “life moves on and I'm moving on too”.
He was responding after the Alliance for Animal Rights (AFAR) released a statement saying that it is “horrified” at his election bid.
“We in AFAR call on the decent people in Limerick to condemn these animal violations and to make sure he is not given a position of public office. This makes a joke of the judicial system if a convicted abuser of any kind can run for office,” it read.
It also issued a call for people to lodge objections with the local authority, even though returning officer, Eugene Griffin, confirmed that there are no legal grounds to refuse Mr Smith's nomination.
Mr Smith said that he will register to run in the Adare electoral area before the Saturday deadline and will hold a press conference next Monday night to “come up strongly and explain” why he is running.
In January, Judge Tom O'Donnell said that the conditions on Mr Smith's farm showed “cruelty of the most appalling kind” while an inspector with the Limerick Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (LSPCA) asked that the part-time farmer be banned from keeping animals for life.
Mr Smith declined to go into detail about the events but said that he “got caught out with a builder. They were putting up a shed for me and assured me that it would be finished by the end of September but they didn't finish it until the end of March. I had no place to put the cattle. There were other developments and I will go into greater detail on the situation next week. I had a problem with dogs pestering the animals”.
The independent candidate-who also owns Richie Tyres-said that he is aware of AFAR's stance but feels he has a political contribution to make.
“People are in such anger at the moment; they're just worried about the future. They feel that people are getting away with things and that the country is being robbed and plundered. I'm not looking for any expenses; I'll be putting the country first. From my point of view, I want to give a tolerant, logical view with a minimum of red tape,” he said.
The former Fine Gael party member added that he disagreed with recent comments by Fine Gael city councillor, Jim Long, about migrant workers-adding that “anyone that says that people from abroad have contributed nothing to Limerick must be mad”.

kraggy

Good that this was spotted.

Perhaps it could be copied over to the Limerick Forum?

People should know who and what they are voting for if they decide to vote for him.

dlofnep

If he treats animals like that - what does it say about how he will treat the people he runs for?

Kess73

I have had dealings with the man in the past, and his personality matches the cruelty he inflicted onto his animals.


I agree that this should be put in the Limerick city and Limerick county forums. He may be running for ofice in the county, but more read the city forum than the council one, at least it seems that way as the city forum is always busier.

EGAR

Feel free to xpost it, it's not my writing anyway. I just found it.