Two women who tortured and killed a friend’s pet parrot during a lengthy drinking session have been jailed by a judge who described their cruelty as “beyond comprehension”.
A court heard that Tracy Dixon, 47, and Nicola Bradley, 35, sprayed Sparky the female African grey parrot with Mr Muscle oven cleaner, daubed it with gloss paint and tried to feed it to a dog. They later threw it in a tumble dryer that was turned on.
Both women blamed the other. Judge Archer, sitting at Carlisle crown court on Tuesday, jailed them for 25 months each and said Dixon and Bradley had “together, sadistically tortured and essentially killed Sparky. It is frankly beyond comprehension how anyone could treat an animal in this way.”
The court heard the two women had been collected after a night out by their friend Paul Crooks, Sparky’s owner, on 30 July last year. He took them to his Carlisle home at about 5.30am and as the women carried on drinking, Crooks went to bed.
He woke at 8.30am to find his guests had messed around with shaving foam that had gone over the parrot’s cage. This was cleaned off and as he left his house to go shopping, he told the women to leave the bird alone.
When he returned Crooks found the women wearing his clothing with Sparky unresponsive and unrecognisable, its head hanging limply out of its cage.
After confronting the pair, he learned the parrot had been covered with products including Mr Muscle, Brasso metal polish, and furniture polish. It had also been daubed in gloss paint and hit with a tea towel.
A court heard that attempts were made to feed Sparky to Crooks’s dog before the parrot was put into a tumble dryer that was switched on. When the door was opened the parrot was “gasping” its last breath and one of the women wrung its neck.
Dixon and Bradley, of Carlisle, went on trial last month and denied causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal but were found guilty by city magistrates.
At Tuesday’s sentencing, the prosecutor Daniel Bramhall said the bird had been happy and healthy before the “sadistic behaviour” by both defendants.
The women were banned from owning or keeping animals indefinitely.
Jack Troup, representing Bradley, confirmed she maintained her denials in relation to the conviction. “That limits what I can say in relation to mitigation,” he said.
Dixon’s lawyer, Anthony Parkinson, said: “The two of them were in it together. They deserve the same sentence whatever that sentence might be.” He said Dixon had previously looked after animals and demonstrated love towards them.
Crooks had told magistrates that Sparky was a big hit with his friends and was able to sing God Save the Queen and theme tunes from Coronation Street and Emmerdale.
In an impact statement Crooks said he had since experienced panic attacks and anxiety and struggled to sleep.
“In terms of not having Sparky around any more, it’s not been the same without her,” he said. “The house is so quiet without her now and she’s been a huge miss.”
