Members of international dog-fighting ring jailed

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Members of a dog-fighting ring including a kingpin known as Dr Death have been jailed for a string of animal welfare crimes.

Dogs endured brutal training regimes and were starved to fighting weight before being put in bouts where they fought sometimes to the death, Chelmsford Crown Court heard on Monday.

The animals suffered serious injuries including broken legs and were kept in dirty conditions, some with no access to clean drinking water or proper bedding, and being left caged and alone for long periods.

Injured animals were treated by those in the fighting gang with makeshift medical kits rather than taken to qualified vets, in order to avoid detection.

Judge Jamie Sawyer said the gang showed “a shocking level of barbarism and callousness” for the dogs involved in the case.

He said the fights, which took place in England, Ireland and France, were “highly planned and without a care for the welfare of the animals in question”.

The judge told the defendants: “Dogs were treated as a commodity by each of you. They were playing pieces in your game.”

Much of the key evidence in the case came from a phone belonging to Phillip Harris Ali, 67, of Manford Way, Chigwell, Essex, who was known as Dr Death.

This included photos and videos of dogs and gruesome match reports detailing how the animals were set upon each other, sent via the encrypted messaging app Signal.

Ali was sentenced to five years in total for 10 offences under the Animal Welfare Act.

Many of the crimes were committed while he was still under licence conditions put in place after a 2007 conviction for attempted murder.

His “right-hand man”, Stephen Albert Brown, 57, of Burrow Road, Chigwell, Essex, was jailed for two years and six months after he was found guilty of five offences under the Animal Welfare Act.

As the fighting ring’s medicine man, he got illegal veterinary medication and equipment and was involved in training dogs and arranging fights.

Personal trainer Billy Leadley, 38, who had a dog fighting pit at his home in Bambers Green, Takeley, Essex, was jailed for a total of four years for 12 different offences.

The judge said reading a match report about one 58-minute fight at which Leadley was referee, in which one of the animals suffered two broken legs, was “horrific”.

His wife, hairdresser Amy Leadley, 39, who was not directly involved in the ring, was sentenced for various offences linked to keeping a premises for dog-fighting and not caring for the animals properly.

She was given an 18-month community order, 200 hours of unpaid work and 25 days of rehabilitation activity.

All four defendants were banned from keeping dogs for 10 years.

RSPCA chief inspector Ian Briggs said: “Dog fighting is a barbaric and horrific blood sport which has been illegal in this country for almost 190 years; yet there is a secretive and clandestine underworld where it continues to happen today.

“It has become a hobby, passion and source of entertainment for the people involved, but the reality is that the dogs involved suffer unimaginable pain, suffering, fear and distress.

“This gang dedicated their lives to breeding, preparing and training what they believed were champion fighting dogs.

“They enjoyed the build-up to a fight and the excitement of the bloody brawls, as well as trying to patch their injured and dying dogs back together after the event.

“Sadly, some of the dogs in this case suffered severe injuries and were never found but a mobile phone recovered as part of the investigation included match reports that detailed awful and fatal injuries suffered by some of the dogs involved.”