Animal cruelty horror happening on our doorstep

Picture: Lorne Campbell /Guzelian Robert Fuller next to a hole from where badgers were pulled out of the ground in North Yorkshire by baiters.

Police said evidence uncovered in their 12-month operation highlighted some of the worst levels of animal welfare.

It is thought those involved may have been planning badger digging, deer poaching, hare coursing and offences under the Dangerous Dogs Act.

And what do the despicable people who commit these offences with their lurchers and terriers gain from their spoils, nearly always committed under the cover of darkness for necessity from their point of view?

Mr Pendle cannot think of one reason apart from it giving them the chance to boast about in the pub to their friends who are, almost without exception, of the same shaven headed, tattooed and/or beer bellied fraternity.

It is certainly nothing for them to be proud of, setting their savage animals on creatures unable to defend themselves to maul and, in many cases kill them.

These people can be seen arrogantly strutting the streets of towns in Pendle with their status symbol dogs – Mr Pendle stops short of calling the animals pets because many of them are clearly kept for ulterior motives than to lay quietly beside a fire.

The operation brought the horrors of what has been afoot in Colne into the open – and Mr Pendle hopes to see more similar operations in Pendle in the future.