A Nottinghamshire businessman who told owners he was keeping their pets in a luxury kennel was actually starving dogs in locked cages that were covered in their own poo and urine. Craig Halls had been illegally running Stapleford Luxury Boarding Kennels on Bessell Lane without a license for years but the grim nature of the facility was only discovered in August 2023. Nottinghamshire Police were deployed to the kennels over the Bank Holiday weekend last year after owners became concerned that they could not contact Halls to collect their dogs.
Officers found the dogs had been locked in their kennels for days and had not been checked on or given food and water. They had been left to sit in their own mess, with many showing visible signs of ill health such as weight loss and matted fur. Officers from Beeston Police Station and the RSPCA successfully reunited the dogs with their owners, with workers from the animal welfare charity also removing Halls' own neglected dogs.
Get the latest news straight to your phone by joining us on WhatsApp Halls was then prosecuted by Broxtowe Borough Council for operating without a licence and by the RSPCA for animal neglect. He pleaded guilty to two offences of causing unnecessary suffering to dogs and to operating a commercial dog boarding kennels without a licence in Stapleford , between March and August 2023. He was given a 26-week custodial sentence, which was suspended for 18 months, on July 31.
Halls was also indefinitely banned from ownin.