A FRIGHTENED terrier dog was buried alive after being beaten half-dead with a spade, a court heard last week.

When police dug the animal up some hours later it had suffocated but was still warm, Warrington Crown Court was told.

Mark Quinn, 30, of Cambridge Street, Widnes, was returned to prison after failing in an appeal against a six-month jail sentence.

Judge David Hale told him: "You treated that animal in an appalling manner."

Quinn and another man, Christopher Syze, were found guilty of causing unnecessary suffering to a rough-haired terrier after a trial before magistrates at Runcorn.

Quinn was jailed for six months and banned from keeping an animal for life and Syze was jailed for two months and banned from keeping an animal for 12 years.

Christopher Staples, prosecuting, said Quinn's girlfriend, Marie Shaw, arrived at his home to be told by another man: "Don't go into the garden - they're going to kill the dog."

She ran into the garden and saw Quinn digging a hole.

The dog, Titch, was hiding behind a board leaning against a fence.

He told her: "I'm getting rid of the dog - it has bitten somebody."

Miss Shaw pleaded with the men to let her take the dog to find it a new home.

"She even offered to take it to a vet to have it put down humanely.

But Syze told her: "Keep out of it. We're terrier men and this is how it is done.

Syze grabbed the dog and threw it towards Quinn who struck it a heavy but glancing blow with the spade.

A RSPCA post mortem examination revealed the head wound had not killed the dog but that it asphyxiated.

Simon Berkson, defending, said Quinn believed he had killed the dog with one blow.

He thought it should be put down because it had bitten two people and was "a menace".

He had owned a number of dogs but the RSPCA had taken them all from him.

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