A man 'booted' a dog 'like a rugby ball' - before threatening a woman who tried to intervene, telling her he'd 'smash her face in' and drown her. Michael Lee claimed to have been trying to train the bullmastiff Chunk for 'protection', by raising his leg towards him in park.
The 47-year-old denied making any connection with the animal. In bizarre scenes at Bolton Magistrates' Court, Lee claimed he realised the dog 'wasn't [his] Chunk' when it did not react to his actions.
He told magistrates his friend must have switched Chunk with his near-identical dog, also called Chunk, for 'a bit of a joke'. Rejecting his version of events, magistrates found Lee, of Hilda Street, Heywood, guilty of causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal.
