Larne woman who abandoned pet Jack Russell dog to starve to death walks free from court

In November 2024, Penny Gove was handed a three-month jail sentence for the “utterly disgraceful” abandonment of Gizmo, but the 37-year-old appealed that sentence and at Antrim County Court of Appeal, Judge Alistair Devlin increased the sentence to six months.

He told Gove, however, that despite her effectively abandoning “this poor creature” and leaving him to starve to death over a period of weeks, “on balance” he would suspend the sentence for three years.

At an earlier hearing Gove, from Linn Road, Larne, admitted causing unnecessary suffering to the dog while a further charge of failing to ensure the needs of the animal was marked as ‘left on the books’.

A prosecuting lawyer outlined that on February 19, 2024, a report was made to the animal welfare officer about “a dead or dying dog” at a Larne property.

When a search warrant was executed, the officer found the house “in disarray” and a Jack Russell terrier lying dead in the back yard.

Describing how Gizmo was “severely underweight and all the bones could be felt protruding,” the lawyer said police officers had gone with the officer and they were able to tell her that Gove “was at another address” in the town.

When Gove was spoken to, she claimed “she had been to feed the dog several days previously” but the animal had “lost weight since Christmas”.

The court heard, however, a post-mortem report showed that “the cause of death was starvation” and the vet concluded “it took several weeks for the dog to die of starvation and therefore, it is a case of prolonged suffering”.

The court heard Gizmo weighed just three kilos when he died when a healthy terrier should weigh at least twice that.

Defence counsel Thomas McKeever conceded “it’s a very serious case” and Gove had lied to the officer claiming she had fed the dog the week before it was found dead.

He told the court that that according to Gove she had made arrangements for a friend to look after Gizmo but “he had not been doing that and she was misled”.

“So her case is that it was this third party who failed to do what was required,” enquired Judge Devlin, adding that “presumably” she did not bother to check “because if she did she would have seen that this poor dog was starving to death”.

Mr McKeever agreed that Gove had not visited the dog but said that was “down to her mental health at the time”.

Judge Devlin told Gove: “This is absolutely disgraceful offending where you left a defenceless animal, who you claimed to have some affection for, to basically starve to death … this warrants a custodial sentence.”

The judge said while he would increase the sentence from three to six months, “I am however prepared to suspend that for three years” to allow Gove to continue to address the issues in her life as well as her mental health problems.

He also imposed a lifelong animal disqualification order and told Gove she would have to enter a payment plan to pay the £620 costs.