Dogfighting sentences reduced by Appeal Court

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According to a ruling handed down by the Turku Court of Appeal on Thursday, the earlier sentences passed in connection with a dogfighting case in Ypäjä were excessively harsh.
      The higher court reduced the six-month suspended sentences passed on the defendants appreciably. In two cases the time was reduced to three months and for one man to one month.
     
The Court of Appeal noted that there is no established practice for determining the severity of punishment for arranging dogfights in Finland.
      It regarded the line drawn in February by the Forssa-Loimaa District Court as too stiff relative to the damage, danger, and cause of the actions.
      The judgement is more or less in line with that put forward by the judge on the panel in the lower court, where the decision was the result of a vote.
     
The fights arranged in Ypäjä came to light as a result of TV footage from a BBC Panorama film crew. The defendants in the case charged that the journalists had provoked the incident, which took place in March 2007, and that alcohol had further fuelled matters.
      In their view the dogfights do not produce any worse injuries for those taking part than are incurred in hunting with dogs in dens or sets. They appealed that the dogs had not suffered any permanent injury from the six fights arranged in Ypäjä.
      The prosecutor had demanded that the men receive a lifetime ban on keeping dogs as a result of animal cruelty offences, but the appeal court followed the same line as the earlier judgement. the men were ordered to stay well away from keeping dogs for five years.
     
The immediate response to the Turku judgement, at least measured by comments on the Helsingin Sanomat discussion forum associated with the online article, was not particularly favourable.
      Numerous posters deplored the reduction in sentences and the signal that it sends, and one pointed to what was seen as a glaring irregularity when a defendant in a case of smuggling snus or smokeless tobacco recently received a two-year custodial sentence.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Prison sentences for three over dogfighting case (21.2.2008)

See also:
  Dog breeder gets suspended sentence in follow-up to dogfighting case (17.10.2008)

Helsingin Sanomat