By Gordon Deegan
Controversial horse trainer, Stephen Mahon, has avoided jail after paying €6,500 compensation to a 67-year-old farmer left “brokenhearted” by sheep kills over the years.
At Gort District Court, Judge Mary Larkin spared Mahon jail after the compensation payout to farmer, John Moran, who has been farming for 52 years.
Judge Larkin stated: “If Mr. Mahon hadn’t paid the compensation, he would definitely be going to jail.”
She made her comment after imposing cumulative fines of €1,350 on Mahon of The Ranch, Kilcolgan, concerning a sheep kill on June 3, 2018 at Caherpeak, Kilcolgan involving two dogs, a rottweiler and a terrier which belonged to him.
The judge imposed six separate fines on six separate offences concerning the two dogs. The largest fine of €500 concerned Mahon being an owner of a dog which worried livestock on June 3, 2018.
Dog attack
Judge Larkin said that Mahon’s dogs killed an innocent person’s sheep and “created havoc on the night in question”.
The number of sheep killed in the incident – which the judge stated “was a particularly egregious matter” – remained undisclosed at the sentencing hearing.
Mahon defended the prosecution taken against him, according to judge Larkin who commented that the dogs on the night “were vicious” and that “it was a particularly nasty event”.
Mahon had at all times denied owning the dogs. The judge also imposed an order that he will not own any dogs in the future.
Mahon’s barrister told the court that the father of two is a former horse trainer and currently unemployed. The barrister stated that “Mr. Mahon had paid over a substantial amount of compensation and apologises”.
Last June, in an unrelated matter, Mahon was given the longest ban ever handed out to a horse trainer here at four years for breaching animal welfare rules on the back of two inspections of his Co. Galway yard in April 2021.
The four-year suspension by the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board (IHRB) was reduced last September by six months on appeal.
Over nine sheep kills
The farmer in the case, John Moran, said that he was “happy to hear” the order that Mahon can no longer own dogs.
Speaking outside court, Moran said:
“This is not about money. It is about cruelty. No animal should have to suffer like that. The cruelty side is not acceptable to anyone.”
Moran has previously told Gort District Court in a separate sheep kill case that he has been left ‘broken hearted” over nine sheep kills over the years that left 68 sheep dead. He said: “I don’t know of any farmer who has lost 68 sheep like that.”
Outside court, Moran said after one sheep kill, “I had a full trailer of dead sheep heading over to the knackery”.
The farmer said that it is desperate to come across a sheep kill. He said: “It is not easy to take. It is very hard to see sheep suffer so much.” He has 220 breeding ewes that produce 370 lambs each year.