AN ILLEGAL dog breeder from Llanwnnen, who left puppies close to death, will be allowed to keep animals after winning an appeal.

Richard Samuel Morgan Jones, 31, of Moelfre, near Lampeter, was sentenced to nine weeks in prison in February, suspended for 18 months, and banned from keeping dogs for four years after he was found guilty at trial of breeding dogs without a licence and causing unnecessary suffering to 21 dogs in his care.

After initially appealing his conviction and the sentence handed down to him by Aberystwyth magistrates, as reported in the Cambrian News, Jones chose to withdraw the appeal against his conviction just days before his appeal hearing at Swansea Crown Court on 11 May.

But Jones won his appeal against the ban on keeping animals for four years, which he told the appeal hearing would make his work as a sheep farmer impossible. He will now only be banned from the practice of dealing in dogs for a period of six years.

The appeal hearing was also told Jones and his sister ran the farm and their family’s finances depended on it.

The appeal judge, Recorder Peter Griffiths QC, ruled that the terms of the ban should be changed to allow him to continue farming but to stop him running puppy farms.

The appeal judge added: “I reiterate that each member of the court was appalled by the conditions of the dogs,” he said, adding that he believed the nine-week prison sentence handed down by Aberystwyth magistrates, suspended for 18 months, had been “on the lenient side”.

Ceredigion council brought the prosecution after raids at two premises last June found 113 dogs and puppies in suffering.

At Jones’ trial in February, the court heard that many of the dogs in his care had been “suffering extreme stress and unnecessary mental suffering” after being locked in individual pens without exercise or contact with other dogs.

One puppy was so thin it was close to death, the court heard, and others were suffering from gangrene and septicaemia, while there was evidence that some dogs had eaten their own faeces.

The court was told Jones used to have a breeding licence but it was not renewed by the local authority in 2015 because of concerns.

A comprehensive report about the prosecution will be presented to the licencing committee of Ceredigion County Council at a meeting on 13 July.

The appeal hearing was told that, since the raids, Jones’ farm had passed inspections and the dogs he bred had since been rehomed.