Six men handed suspended sentences and banned from owning animals in the future after torturing rodent

Animal welfare society Dyrenes Beskyttelse has slammed the light sentences of a group of young men who set fire to a guinea pig and filmed it running around, before beating it to death with a golf club.

When the video clip of the abuse surfaced last summer it caused outrage across the country, and the six men who admitted to being present when the abuse was filmed were charged.

But a northern Jutland court yesterday denied the prosecutors request for jail sentences of up to three months. Instead, three of the men were given a 20 day suspended sentence, two were given a 30 day suspended sentence, and the last man received a 40 day suspended sentence, because he had bought the animal.

Five of the men were additionally slapped with a 1000 kroner fine.

The court also rejected the prosecutor’s request to ban the men from owning animals in the future, saying it was a one-off case of animal abuse, reports TV2 News.

‘We wanted the judge to give a clear signal that there must be clear-cut consequences if animals are abused,’ said Britta Riis, head of Dyrenes Beskyttelse.

‘We’re especially disappointed that the young men’s right to own animals wasn’t revoked. Not necessarily for the rest of their lives, but at least for some period.’