A three year ban for cooking your dogs

I don't pretend to be an expert on the law, but if it's not an ass it's a donkey.
Today in Bromley Magistrates Court former PC  Ian Craven was banned from owning dogs for three years after he left his two dogs to bake alive in his car on the hottest day of the summer.
An RSPCA statement said the dogs would have experienced substantial suffering and Craven had been sentenced "accordingly".
I'm sorry, but the sentence doesn't seem in any way appropriate to me.
A lifetime ban, yes.
Community service handing out Don't Cook Your Dog Leaflets, why not!
Six months working in a rescue centre saving as many dogs as he can.
I quote from the BBC report.

On 26 June he left the four-year-old Belgian Malinois called Chay and a six-month-old German Shepherd called Tilly in his vehicle on one of the hottest days of the year.
Prosecutor Andrew Wiles said temperatures that day went from 16.1C (61F) at 7am to 22.2C (72F) by 11am, in the shade.
Craven arrived at about 7am with the dogs in a black plastic cage in the back and parked in front of the main building, in an area with no shade. The court was told he had intended to kennel the dogs while spending the day at the Olympic Village in east London. However, Craven forgot and when he realised several hours later he rang the centre to alert them.

Mr Wiles said: "He was pursued by his colleague, who said he appeared to be in a panic, he was pacing up and down, and heard to say 'I've killed my dogs'."
The court also heard in a previous incident in 2004, Craven had left a spaniel in a hot car at Keston that also died.

Mr Wiles said Craven underwent an internal investigation and pleaded guilty to offences detailed in the code of conduct for police officers and was reprimanded.
RSPCA chief inspector Dermot Murphy said: "Ian Craven, for the second time, left dogs in his vehicle on a hot day and forgot about them.
"This is an unacceptable action and one that is aggravated by the fact that he was a professional dog handler and trainer at the time."

Sentencing him at Westminster Magistrates' Court, District Judge Daphne Wickham said: "I accept it has brought your illustrious career as a sergeant to an end, it may have damaged your wife's career and your reputation with all those around you, and that in itself is a punishment."

In three year's time will he have learned not to forget that dogs die in hot cars? Will his memory have improved?
How many years did it take him to unlearn the previous tragic lesson supposedly learned when he killed his spaniel?
What message does this send to the British public?
That a dog's life is very, very cheap.
That imposing a horrible painful death on your best friend will attract even less punishment than littering.
I know, he tried to kill himself, he's lost his job. He is probably more hated than that woman who put the cat in the bin, but I think he would have expected to be appropriately punished by the court. Going soft on him does him no real favours. The public need to see the crime appropriately punished if they are to move on.
He should not be allowed to have any more dogs, minimum.
He has shown he has not learned anything from the first death.
Why assume that two more deaths will change anything?
District Judge Daphne Wickham, deep sigh, let's hope you don't also let serial killers out again after three years presuming they've learned their lesson. But you didn't even lock this guy up, didn't even fine him - you just stopped him owning any new dogs for three years.
It's nothing.

Chay and Tilly were still alive when they were rescued from that car.
Their brains were bleeding and their internal organs had shut down, but they were still conscious and suffering.
It is a TERRIBLE way to die and Daphne should have been given a lesson on just how horrible before she did her sentencing.
Please support Don't Cook Your Dog, the campaign inspired by this case, and let's try to make sure Chay and Tilly's deaths aren't completely unmarked. Together we can save other dogs from a similar fate. We can look over the shoulder of people who continue to 'forget' they've left their dog in the car. Sadly, it looks like we can't rely on the legal system to take the lead here.