GEORGE NEWS FLASH - Today, 20 months after the death of Tosca the Labrador, her owner, Quinton van Rooyen, was sentenced in the George Magistrate’s Court.
When SPCA Inspector André Baartman attended to a call about a starving dog in Touwsranten on Thursday 18 February 2016, he could not in his wildest dreams have pictured the horrific scene that awaited him.
What he found, shook him to the core - a starved labrador bitch near death, shackled to her kennel. Maggots - eating her alive. Her condition was so bad that after numerous efforts to save her, the most merciful course of action was euthanasia.
At the time, Senior SPCA Inspector Salome Bruyns, told the George Herald that this was the worst case of neglect and starvation she had seen in all her years at the Garden Route SPCA. “Tosca still had a fighting spirit, but the call for help came too late.”
Today van Rooyen was sentenced to 12 months correctional supervision (house arrest) as well as one year community service. A sentence many would consider too lenient for this type of offence.
Read more in next week’s George Herald, and online.
Click here for previous articles:
- Residents want justice for Tosca
- Tosca's starvation death: Couple in Court
- Still no justice for Tosca
- Horrific death for give away dog
- Georgians opinion about Tosca's death
- Another starved dog found
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