A Welsh horse dealer has been jailed for eight months and banned from keeping horses for five years after being found guilty of 57 welfare and cruelty charges.
Tom Price, 48, from Wick in the Vale of Glamorgan, is believed to own up to 2,500 gypsy cobs.
He was jailed for six months at Cardiff Magistrates’ Court today (5 July) for causing unnecessary suffering to 18 horses. The prosecution was brought by the RSPCA.
The sentence will run concurrently with an eight-month sentence he received for breaching an anti-social behaviour order (ASBO). He was served with the ASBO last November, for repeatedly fly-grazing his horses in the Vale of Glamorgan.
Price’s 26-year-old son, Thomas Hope Price, pleaded guilty to the offences before the trial. He was jailed for 23 weeks.
District Judge Bodfan Jenkins ordered the pair to pay £43,000 each in court costs.
He said the men had been involved in a large and wealthy operation breeding gypsy cobs and the conditions the animals were kept in “beggared belief”.
The five-year ban for keeping horses was suspended for six months to give the Prices time to sell or dispose of their stock.
