Alberta animal abuser gets weekend jail sentence

A Didsbury man has been sentenced to 30 days in jail for torturing his family's dog, ending a case that dragged through the Alberta court system for two years.

Daniel Haskett, now 21, had pleaded guilty to causing unnecessary suffering to an animal and obstruction of justice.

On Wednesday, a provincial court judge sentenced Haskett to 30 days in jail to be served on weekends, a year's probation and a weekday 9 p.m. curfew.

Haskett is not prohibited from owning or being around animals.

"[His] mother has a dog and the dog's very attached to him so that was actually a very big deal for him," said defence lawyer Alan Pearse.

Calling the case a botched attempt to cover up an accident, the judge rejected the Crown's request of a jail term of three to five months and a ban from owning a pet for two years.

'I think it's a very pathetic sentence you know. Thirty days, weekends? What is that?' —Tamara Cheney, animal rights activist

In October 2006, a 17-year-old friend accidentally ran over Daisy Duke, a lab-border collie cross, in the town 80 kilometres north of Calgary.

Haskett and the friend taped a plastic bag over the dog's head, hit it over the head with a shovel and dragged it behind a truck.

The animal was discovered so injured that a veterinarian had to euthanize her.

In May, the young offender was sentenced to three months of house arrest followed by two years of probation, as well as 240 hours of community service.

"This was more or less a misguided attempt at euthanasia," said Pearse.

Crown prosecutor Gordon Haight said he was gratified a jail term was imposed.

"Indeed the Crown's position was it would not be accurate even to characterize it as euthanasia. These two individuals were simply trying not to get in trouble and in doing so, inflicted horrendous suffering to this animal," he said on Wednesday.

Wanted harsher sentence

The animal rights activists who have protested outside the Didsbury courthouse before and after every proceeding said they wanted to see a harsher jail sentence for Haskett.

"I think it's a very pathetic sentence you know. Thirty days, weekends? What is that? Pathetic," said Tamara Cheney who started one of several petitions sparked by the case.

One with 110,000 signatures was sent to Ottawa supporting the modernization of Canada's animal-cruelty laws for the first time in a century.

The House of Commons recently passed a new law raising the maximum penalty for cruelty to animals to five years in prison or a $10,000 fine, or both. But the maximum under the old law, in effect when the incident happened, was six months in prison or a $2,000 fine, or both.

Haskett's lawyer had asked for a conditional sentence with no jail time, because his client had suffered death threats in the town of about 15,000 people and had a bullet fired through his living room window.

At his first court appearance, a crowd surrounded Haskett as he got into a minivan and then kicked and pounded on the vehicle. In June, a protester yelled obscenities at him and his mother as the RCMP escorted them out of the courthouse.

"I think he's happy it's over," said Pearse of his client, who left without speaking to reporters.