Police dog handler Pc Mark Johnson, 39, appeared at Nottingham Magistrates’ Court to deny killing his two dogs Jay-Jay and Jet on June 30.
Dressed in a black suit, white shirt and patterned blue-and-beige tie, Johnson spoke only to confirm his name, his age and to deny killing Jet, 10, and 18-month-old Jay-Jay.
The prosecution is being brought by the RSPCA which accuses Johnson of “unnecessarily confining them (his dogs) in an environment that was detrimental to their wellbeing”.
The dogs were found in the back of Johnson’s car at Nottinghamshire Police’s HQ in Arnold after the officer popped in to run some errands.
The deaths happened on one of the hottest days of the year, when temperatures reached 29.3C (84.7F).
Johnson will go on trial before a district judge at Nottingham Magistrates’ Court on February 22.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article