27/08/2026
🚨 CO ANTRIM COUPLE HANDED SUSPENDED PRISON SENTENCES OVER ‘DISGRACEFUL’ ANIMAL SUFFERING
A Co Antrim couple who left a dog to starve in a faeces-filled bedroom have had their prison sentences suspended.
Aleshia McLaverty and Jason Gallagher were due to contest matters at Ballymena Magistrates Court on Wednesday but instead, they each entered guilty pleas to one charge.
While 34-year-old McLaverty admitted causing unnecessary suffering to an adult terrier cross dog “on or before” 18 July last year, at their home on Islandbawn Drive in Antrim, Gallagher (age unknown) admitted failing to take reasonable steps to meet the needs of the dog.
A prosecuting lawyer told the court that after police had called at their home on an unrelated matter, officers alerted the council’s animal welfare officer about the conditions of a terrier dog, and the room it was being kept in.
As a result, a warrant was obtained and executed that day and when a vet examined the dog and the bedroom, it was deemed to be suffering and was seized as a result.
The prosecutor outlined that the terrier was extremely thin, ribs and spine visible and it weighed 6.9kgs.
In addition, there was faeces strewn throughout the bedroom where the dog was being kept.
The court heard that after the terrier was seized, it gained more than a kilo in weight in a short space of time and since it was rescued, has been successfully re-homed.
In addition to the latest offending, he told the court, McLaverty has a previous conviction for a similar offence.
In August 2015 at Antrim Crown Court, McLaverty was given a suspended sentence for causing unnecessary suffering to a black Labrador.
In that case, the court heard that the defendant had abandoned the lab, leaving the dog trapped in a flat without food or water.
When animal welfare officers called to the flat in the Greystone estate in Antrim, the lab was found dead, entangled in a window blind in a failed attempt to escape.
A post-mortem examination revealed the Labrador had died of dehydration and starvation, and that it was likely it had tried to jump through a window to escape but then became entangled in a blind.
On Wednesday, defence counsel revealed that McLaverty “has been the victim of various threats against her life by paramilitaries and other members of the community through social media.”
Both defendants, their lawyers submitted, have shown remorse by pleading guilty and added that when it comes to assessing the costs to be paid, they both are in receipt of Universal Credit.
Having studied the photographs, Deputy District Judge Austin Kennedy said the terrier “looks like quite a nice dog” but that clearly, “the room it was being kept in was, quite simply, appalling.”
“It appears from the photographs that the dog must have been kept in there for quite some time,” the judge added, describing the offences and treatment of the animal as “disgraceful.”
While McLaverty was handed a five-month prison sentence and Gallagher a two-month prison sentence, both were suspended for two years.
In addition, the couple were banned from keeping, owning or caring for any animal for five years.
Judge Kennedy also ordered them to pay a total of £1,200 in fines and court and vet costs, ordering that a collection order be put in place to regularly take money from their benefits.
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Reposted from Inside The Courtroom NI
Copy by Paul Higgins
Photo: defendants Aleshia McLaverty and Jason Gallagher
Photos of the terrier and the room, courtesy of Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council
