Angry trucker throttled neighbour’s cockerel over its ‘incessant’ crowing at 3am
AN angry truck driver throttled a neighbour’s cockerel over its “incessant” crowing at 3am.
Sleep-deprived Caroline Smith, 52, said she seized the bird, called Eddie, by the throat after “six months” of its crack-of-dawn cacophony.
Afterwards she was seen standing over it, shouting: “I’m sick of it — but I’ve sorted it.”
Eddie was taken to a vet who said asphyxiation had caused a brain injury.
But the bird recovered within a week and returned to crow again.
Houseboat-occupier Smith had previously complained to Eddie’s owner Justine Carroll, who was also moored on a stretch of the Leeds and Liverpool canal in Adlington, Lancs.
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But attempts to rehome the bird had failed.
Anne McDonald, prosecuting for the RSPCA at Wigan magistrates’ court, said another canal boat owner was a witness.
Representing herself, married Smith said: “Sleep deprivation almost cost me my job as a long-distance lorry driver.
“Cockerels are not allowed on these moorings.
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“You can keep laying hens — but cocks, no.
“I was at my wits’ end and got very angry.
“I’m sorry about the whole episode.
“I didn’t want to harm it, I just wanted it removed.”
Smith, now of Houghton, Lancs, admitted causing unnecessary suffering.
She was ordered to pay a £1,296 vet’s bill and complete a 12-month community order and 100 hours of unpaid work.