A domestic abuser told his partner “I’m going to scar your face” hours before killing her puppies by slamming them into a concrete floor.
Jimmy Smith, 34, terrorised his girlfriend in a decade-long campaign of domestic abuse, which culminated in him attacking her cocker spaniels, Sky and Angel, on 7 August last year.
One puppy died in the house that day while the other was later put down by a vet.
Smith, of Thames Ditton, Surrey, was jailed for seven years and five months at Canterbury Crown Court and handed a 10-year restraining order against his partner, who has not been named.
In the hours running up to the attack, Smith told his partner: “I’ve knocked your spleen out and now I’m going to scar your face.”
The abuser then picked up an axe and swung his arm, as if to throw it at her.
Later he hurled the puppies by their leads and hit their heads against the concrete before dragging them along the floor while they were still tied at the collar.
The terrified partner, who had been with Smith for 13 years, subsequently told the police in a statement: “I am devastated, angry and hurt. I don’t know what to feel.
"I just can’t believe it, it is a dream and I am going to wake up and it’s not going to be true - I can’t believe he has done this.”
Prior to killing the dogs, Smith spent years physically assaulting, stalking, threatening and controlling his partner. He attacked her so frequently she “just became used to it” - one day he knocked her unconscious in front of neighbours and on another he broke her thumb.
Smith’s victim told the court she lived in constant fear during their 13-year relationship.
She said: “I was too scared to report to the police as I knew the repercussions would be further physical abuse towards me. Even now when I know he’s locked up I’m scared that he’s going to find a way to do something to me.
“I don’t think a day goes by where I feel like I can relax and be myself, and when he is to be released from prison I don’t know what he could do. He constantly told me that he can’t live without me and if we were ever to split up he would come back and kill me.
"He will never be sorry for what he’s done because in his eyes he does not see anything wrong with his actions and this is a normal way of living.”
Smith pleaded guilty before a trial last year to two counts of causing unnecessary suffering to an animal, assault occasioning actual bodily harm, and controlling and coercive behaviour between August 2019 and August 2022.
At his sentencing, Judge Simon Taylor KC described the harrowing moment Smith smashed the defenceless dogs to death.
He said: “[Your partner] saw that you had both of her puppies on their leads and then heard a thud and the puppies screaming. She saw you swinging the puppies by their leads and hitting their heads against the solid concrete floor, throwing them to the ground repeatedly.
“The next time she looked she saw that you were dragging the puppies along the floor by their leads.”
The court heard the abuser descends into aggression because he is illiterate and “finds language hard to comprehend.”
Benjamin Hargreaves, in mitigation for Smith, said: “He is a man who is inadequate and was inadequate in his way of trying to deal with the relationship.” He said he was “devastated” by his behaviour and entered early guilty pleas.
Time already spent on remands will be deducted from his overall sentence.
An RSPCA spokesperson said of the puppies’ deaths: "We are so sad to hear about this deeply tragic case.
"This shocking incident reminds us that pets sadly can be used as a way of controlling people, as a form of domestic violence.
"We would urge anyone experiencing these problems to seek help from the police or a domestic abuse charity, who will also be aware of any charities who provide pet fostering services to help care for animals while owners can get the support they need.”
SWNS
