Jordanna Wheeler (Image: South Wales Police)
Last Updated: 2 minutes ago
A 28-year-old woman has been sent to prison after repeatedly flouting the terms of a suspended sentence she received for beating her pet dog to death.
Jordanna Wheeler, of Beili Glas, Loughor, Swansea, appeared before Swansea Crown Court having already admitted breaching her suspended sentence. She had been due to be dealt with on Monday but arrived late and was remanded into custody.
The original offence
Wheeler’s suspended sentence stemmed from an incident on August 19 last year when she attended Neath Port Talbot Hospital “demanding to be sectioned” over her mental health.
While speaking with hospital staff, she revealed she had been at a party the day before and consumed a large amount of alcohol before returning home. She told them she then “woke up on the sofa covered in spew” and when she went looking for her dog “I discovered I had battered him to death”.
Staff alerted police, and officers who attended Wheeler’s then-flat in the Penlan area of Swansea found a large brown Mastiff lying unresponsive and clearly dead on its bed in the living room. A “severely deformed” saucepan with dog hair on it was also recovered – the weapon she had used to bludgeon the animal.
In December last year, Wheeler was sentenced to 16 months in prison suspended for 18 months after admitting causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal. She was ordered to complete a rehabilitation course, comply with a 120-day alcohol abstinence requirement, and observe a three-month nightly curfew. A 10-year ban on owning any animal was also imposed.
Repeated breaches
The court heard Wheeler showed wholesale disregard for the order in the weeks that followed. She broke her curfew on six separate occasions during January and February, attended none of her rehabilitation sessions, and missed numerous probation appointments without providing an acceptable reason. She also failed to engage with outside agencies offering support.
Alexandra Wilson, representing the Probation Service, told the court Wheeler had shown a “complete disregard” for the order and recommended the original custodial sentence be activated. Wheeler had been open with probation staff that she had left her flat on multiple occasions to visit the pub, go to the park, and take cocaine.
Defence arguments
Sarah John, representing Wheeler, conceded that activation of the original sentence was the likely outcome. She acknowledged that her client’s reasons for breaching the curfew – that she needed to go outside for a walk – was “not one which would hold much weight with the court”.
She told the court Wheeler had begun to engage with probation after breach proceedings were initiated and asked the judge to consider reducing the sentence given her client’s compliance with the alcohol abstinence requirement.
Sentencing
Judge Geraint Walters said that where a suspended sentence is breached, the court is expected to activate it unless doing so would be unjust. He said not only would activation not be unjust in this case, but it could be argued it would be unjust not to activate it.
He added: “Quite frankly, I think you are better off at the moment where you are, not least given the state you arrived in at court on Monday.”
Judge Walters activated 12 months of the suspended sentence. Wheeler will serve up to half in custody before being released on licence to serve the remainder in the community.
