“This is one of the most disturbing and depressing cases that this court has ever seen,” Magistrate Jason Wan Siu-ming said. “I seriously suspect this case was in fact one of animal cruelty.”
Wan said Yu’s behaviour was “extremely irresponsible” and that he had shown no concern for the dog, a chow, even after it appeared to be ill.
“This court cannot imagine how painful it was for the dog to die in solitude without its owner, not to mention its remains were never taken care of.”
The court heard Yu had kept the dog in secret in a vacant unit at the Kwai Shun Industrial Centre in Kwai Chung since January 2023.
The defendant told police he had at first kept the dog at his previous flat in Cheung Ching Estate on Tsing Yi Island.
But he decided to house the pet at the industrial unit because of the limited space at his new home in the nearby Greenview Villa residential complex.
The transport worker claimed the dog started to lose its appetite last November, but he did not take it to a vet even though he knew it had not eaten for two days.
Yu said he did not move or dispose of the dog’s body after its death later the same month, but would sometimes burn incense sticks at the premises.
The dog’s decayed body was discovered on January 15 after a security guard at the building noticed a foul smell from a shower room inside the unit’s toilet.
A prosecution summary of the case said no soft body tissue could be recovered from the remains, which were in an advanced state of decomposition, so forensic analysis had been impossible.
The magistrate at one point in the proceedings questioned whether “laying carrion and a noisome matter on a private property” under the Summary Offences Ordinance was a suitable charge.
Irene Lam So-fong, a senior court prosecutor, said police were unable to pinpoint the cause of the dog’s death and argued the charge, which was designed to penalise unhygienic behaviour, was applicable to the incident.
The defendant, who did not have legal representation, told the court he regretted not arranging for the burial of the dog, but insisted he had fed the animal on a regular basis.
But Wan was unmoved and said the case was “the worst of its kind”. He warned an immediate jail term was “absolutely appropriate”.
He set a starting point for sentence of six weeks’ imprisonment but reduced it by a third because of Yu’s early guilty plea.
Animal cruelty carries a sentence of up to three years in jail and a HK$200,000 (US$25,610) fine, but illegal disposal of carrion only has a maximum sentence of three months behind bars.
