Dogs: Sales

Question

The number of defendants that have been proceeded against at magistrates’ courts and thereafter been found guilty and sentenced at all courts for running a breeding establishment for dogs without a licence from a local authority, in England and Wales, from 2011 to 2015, can be viewed in the table below. It is possible that others may have been prosecuted under the Pet Animals Act 1951 for selling dogs without a pet shop licence. Records held for convictions under the 1951 Act do not, however, show what species of animal were involved.

Prosecutions under the Breeding of Dogs Act 1973

The figures given in the table relate to persons for whom these offences were the principal offences for which they were dealt with. When a defendant has been found guilty of two or more offences, it is the offence for which the heaviest penalty is imposed. Where the same disposal is imposed for two or more offences, the offence selected is the offence for which the statutory maximum penalty is the most severe.

Every effort has been made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. It is important to note, however, that this data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by the courts and police forces. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used.

Source: Justice Statistics Analytical Services – Ministry of Justice. Data extracted on 9 December 2016