Belfast fox hunter to fight new animal cruelty charge
13th October 2024
A bloodsports enthusiast has been charged with badger baiting.
Neil Fredrick Pinkerton is accused of causing unnecessary suffering to a badger on September 4, 2022.
Defence counsel Conan Rea told Newtownards Magistrates Court his client, who did not appear at the hearing, intended to contest the allegation.
He agreed with the suggestion of District Judge Amanda Brady to adjourn for two weeks to fix a date for the trial.
With 36-year-old Pinkerton, from Clandeboye Street in east Belfast, living on benefits, the judge granted legal aid.
It is not the first time that the fox hunter has been charged with animal cruelty.
Pinkerton, who is known in hunting circles, was the subject of a year-long investigation by the USPCA and the League Against Cruel Sports (LCAS).
Twelve dogs were seized from his home, but after Belfast City Council declined to pursue the case, the animals were returned to him.
He was found not guilty of cruelty charges at Belfast Crown Court in 2018 after one of his terriers suffered injuries during a fox hunt.
That case came after the LCAS passed on two videos taken from his Facebook page showing a dog locked onto a fox in December 2016.
Pinkerton was found not guilty on the direction of a judge who decided the clip showed no suffering to the fox, saying the animals had only been attached to each other a short time.
Last March he was handed a suspended four-month prison sentence, fined £150 and ordered to pay £250 compensation to an 11-year-old boy attacked by his bull terrier.
Pinkerton admitted a single charge under the Dangerous Dogs Order after the animal injured the child on Paxton Street in east Belfast in May last year.
His dog avoided being destroyed on the condition it was held in an enclosure and was kept muzzled and on a lead when in public.
The badger baiting case will be mentioned again on November 25.
THIS SCUM SHOULD HAVE BEEN MADE TO APPEAR IN COURT, I HOPE WHEN THE TIME COMES THIS EVIL PIECE OF SHIT GETS SENT DOWN FOR A VERY LONG TIME, PERSONALLY I WOULD LIKE TO SEE HIM GET HURT AND SUFFER LIKE HE HAS MADE THESE ANIMALS SUFFER, HE IS A WASTE OF SPACE AND NO GOOD TO SOCIETY AT ALL.