A RETIRED 83-year-old vet who allowed his lurchers to attack sheep in a Dartmoor village has been banned from keeping dogs for 10 years.

Plymouth magistrates also imposed a 28-day prison sentence on Aubrey Fuller, suspended for 12 months.

Fuller, whose lurcher dogs attacked three sheep in less than a month at Sheepstor, near Yelverton, was also ordered to pay £1,150 prosecution costs.

Magistrates yesterday ruled Fuller had a dog dangerously out of control on March 6 and was the owner of a dog worrying livestock on three separate occasions later that month.

He had denied all four offences but was found guilty after a day-long trial.

The court heard some of the six lurcher dogs he had at the time savaged sheep on common land near his farmstead in the village.

Earlier in the case on Monday, farmer Graham Palmer told the court the dogs were in "killer mode" and could even have attacked a child.

He told the court: "If a little kid had come through the village on a bike the dogs would have shredded it before anyone could stop them."

Mr Palmer also said that for years villagers had suspected Fuller's dogs of savaging and killing sheep but had never been able to prove the identity of the dogs.

Fuller said in evidence: "The only danger my dogs would be was if they licked you to death."

He claimed the first attack was a case of mistaken identity and said that many visitors to the beauty spot allowed their dogs to run free.

Fuller admitted that one of his dogs did go out of his sight on one occasion for four to five minutes but he said he believed it did not attack any sheep.

He added: "I trust my dogs. This is not a court of nature, it is a court of law."

Magistrates yesterday ruled Fuller could not keep dogs for the next 10 years – meaning that he will have to give up his two remaining pets.

They are expected to be rehomed.

The trial was told two of Fuller's dogs had been shot by a sheep farmer after the last attack in March.

Others had already been found new homes.

Fuller, who used to have a vet practice in Paignton, told the trial that he had been keeping and breeding lurchers since 1953.

He said the remaining dogs were the 12th or 13th generations.

Magistrates decided that allowing a pack of dogs to run out of control in a public place popular with families was so serious that a custodial sentence should be imposed.

Fuller was also ordered to pay £92 compensation to the owner of one of the injured sheep.

All of the animals survived the dogs' attacks after treatment.