Appearing before Bournemouth Crown Court, Gordleton Gundogs owner Andrew Claridge-Fleming (57) was sentenced to 30 weeks in jail, suspended for 18 months, for causing unnecessary suffering to animals in his care.
Prosecutor Silas Lee told the court the defendant had admitted leaving four dogs, including one of his own, in his Land Rover Discovery at Ashley Manor Farm on 3rd August, 2023.
The court heard temperature that day had reached 23C and Claridge-Fleming said he had left the dogs in two crates with water and with the sides of the vehicle and the boot door lowered to allow air flow.
He was called away by his wife around 10am and did not return to the farm until 4pm; he told the court he had found his vehicle had been closed. In a statement to investigators he said he was “distraught” to find three of the dogs had “perished”.
Milo, a six-month-old fox-red Labrador, a cocker spaniel named Bodger, and a cockapoo named Rocky, had died of heat exhaustion. The fourth dog, a cocker spaniel also called Rocky belonging to Claridge-Fleming, was rushed to a vet for treatment and was saved.
The trainer said it was not uncommon in the world of gun dogs to leave them in vehicles all day, although he accepted they would usually be more closely supervised and he had left them a “long time”.
He also said he “regretted the incident immensely” and the distress he had caused. He said he believed a member of the public had “maliciously” closed his vehicle, and reported the matter to the police that night over the phone.
Mr Lee said the day after the dogs’ deaths, Claridge-Fleming texted Milo’s owner at 7.43am asking if she was free to speak.
She then received a call shortly after saying there had been an “accident” and Milo was dead along with his own dog, while another was receiving veterinary treatment.
He offered to take Milo to a crematorium but the owner declined, visiting the farm shortly before 3pm that day to see Milo for herself and take a photo of him. Claridge-Fleming told her there had been three dogs in the car and he had left them for “about an hour” around 3pm the day before.
The court heard the trainer met the woman and her partner for a second time at a car park, when he admitted he had left the dogs “for a few hours”. He also showed them an email from the police saying they had investigated and would be taking no further action.
The woman then reported the matter to NFDC, who began investigating alongside the RSPCA.
In a victim statement, she said: “Finding out our pet had died was just awful, but finding out this was due to being shut in a hot car and was avoidable made it so much worse. Telling our girls…was the most upsetting thing we’ve ever had to do.”
The victim also said Claridge-Fleming’s subsequent apology would be easier to accept “if he had been remorseful from the start”.
Instead, she said he had lied to her, was “defensive and rude”, and this had made “processing the death so much harder”.
Holly Fagan, defending, said her client is married with five young children now, including a teen step-daughter, and it would be detrimental to them if he were jailed.
She said the family rents a property at the farm for £1,000 per month, and that Claridge-Fleming earns around £1,500 per month through his business, which he continues to run, supplemented by around £1,500 in universal credit.
She said: “His shock and panic and distress would go some way towards explaining the inconsistencies (in his accounts to different people).”
The judge noted Claridge-Fleming’s first reporting of the matter to the police was the most accurate.
Handing down sentence, the judge said he had shown a “shocking lack of care for the dogs”.
She added: “All four of these dogs relied on you to care for them, but they were left to suffer for six hours. Dogs are highly vulnerable in hot vehicles and they should never have been left there.
“It may be common practice among gun dog owners to leave them in cars…but to most outsiders it’s wrong.”