CONVICTED (2019) | Shaun Brown, born 11 December 1990, formerly of Runciman Road, Hartlepool, and more recently of Brenda Road, Hartlepool TS25 1QH – member of a gang of badger baiters. Shaun Brown was the driver of gang of badger baiters with the other members – Clint Dodd, Michael Dodd, Connor Pounder and Daniel Joyce – all sentenced last month. Jane Chadwick, prosecuting, said that when police, alerted by a member of the public, arrived at the sett in Hovingham, west of Malton, Brown tried to drive off but crashed and was arrested walking away from the scene with his dog beside him. A second dog called Brock, which his co-accused put down the sett, was badly injured. The other members of the Hartlepool-based badger baiting gang: clockwise from top left Clint Dodd, Daniel Joyce, Connor Pounder and Michael Dodd Brown pleaded guilty to digging for badgers, interfering with a badger sett, causing unnecessary suffering to Brock the terrier, careless driving, driving without insurance and without a licence. District judge Adrian Lower told him he may not have actually helped dig up the sett, or put Brock down it, but he was part of the badger baiting. “You cannot pretend that you didn’t know what everyone else was going to do when you arrived in North Yorkshire. “Nearly everyone apart from you and your companions would think that such behaviour is absolutely appalling and involves nothing less than the attempted torture of an animal that cannot properly defend itself against men and a terrier.” The district judge did not give Brown an animal ban. He said Brown’s dog was uninjured and did not appear to have been used for badger baiting, so he could keep her. Sentencing | six-week prison sentence suspended for 12 months on condition he stays out of North Yorkshire and doesn’t associate with any other members of the gang. Banned from driving for 12 months; ordered to pay £368.02 towards the costs of treating and caring for the injured Brock, a £115 statutory surcharge and £85 prosecution costs. York Press