Years after dog’s drowning, review of cases ‘drags through courts’

Animal welfare group Be Their Voice has expressed concern about the delay in the judicial review of the punishment of a St Michael man who pleaded guilty to animal abuse.

On Wednesday, the group’s president Lavern Beresford said that it was a year since the appeal was submitted online and she and other leaders of animal welfare organisations were deeply concerned about how the matter was being handled.

“It is very frustrating that after almost one year, this matter is yet to be heard, the file can’t be located, and time is wasted attending what should be the scheduled court hearings,” she told Barbados TODAY.

In a highly-publicised incident that was captured on video and circulated on social media, a dog named Sparky drowned on Pebbles Beach on September 13, 2022. Davino Shakell Howard, 38, of Bullens Avenue, Dalkeith Road was charged with wantonly ill-treating and causing unnecessary suffering to an animal.

During his trial in January 2023, he pleaded guilty and received 12 months of probation, in addition to counselling deemed necessary by authorities.

But attorney-at-law Lalu Hanuman, who is representing Be Their Voice, filed a judicial review request a few weeks later on February 15 that year.

Hanuman explained that there had been issues locating the case’s file and the first time the group appeared for the court hearing on May 8, 2023, the hearing was adjourned.

Last Thursday, the case was also adjourned without setting a day to reconvene.

Hanuman recounted a tale of a case winding its way through the courts: “This was an urgent application for a judicial review of Davino Howard’s suspended sentence to run concurrently with two other convictions. He had pleaded guilty to animal abuse. Justice Chandler was the duty judge, then it went to Justice Weekes [for] fixing a date of hearing. Then to Justice Hinds who recused herself. Then two hearings before Justice Cooke-Alleyne, and on both occasions, the file was not there.”

Over the years, animal welfare groups across Barbados, have been calling on the government to enforce animal welfare legislation.

During a press conference last year, on the anniversary of Sparky’s death, Hanuman, who is also a member of the Ark Animal Welfare Society of Barbados,said that since the Prevention of Cruelty to Animal Abuse Act was passed in 2007, there had only been two prosecutions, to his recollection — Sparky’s case and another.

“There was also the issue of the burning of two monkeys in a cage and only suspended sentences were handed down [in that matter],” he said. “Section Three of the act speaks to being incarcerated up to 12 months or a $1 000 fine or both, but neither has ever been done. Nobody has ever been fined, not even $1 for animal abuse in Barbados in the last 16 years.

“Nobody has been imprisoned, not even for one day.”

Back then, he acknowledged that the government was proposing to introduce a new Animal Health and Veterinary Public Health Bill that included stiffer penalties for personsconvicted of engaging in animal abuse, torture, and cruelty.

But, he said, passing this 2023 legislation did not make any sense as the current laws were not being enforced.

He suggested: “So instead of it being a 12-month imprisonment option, it will be a two-year imprisonment option, and instead of it being a $1 000 fine, it will be a $50 000 fine. But I asked the prime minister if the current miniscule fines and sentences are not being implemented, what difference does it make if it’s a 1 000-year sentence or a $1 million fine? “Changing the legislation and raising the fine or raising the sentence is totally irrelevant. Implementing the legislation is what is required, not a change to the legislation.” sheriabrathwaite@barbadostoday.bb