'Mindless' bird killers set lurchers on gulls

Two yobs are facing jail after shooting nine protected sea gulls and letting their dogs maul them to death. Paul Reed, 27, and Dane Ord, 22, went out equipped for killing the kittiwakes in the dead of night, a court heard.

They were seen using a powerful torch to light up cliffs where the birds were nesting, then firing at them with an air rifle. As the birds fell on to the beach in Marsden, South Shields, in May, Reed and Ord set two lurchers loose on them, South Tyneside Magistrates' Court heard. Police were called when pub landlord Paul Simpson, 36, saw the 'awful and mindless crime'. The duo from South Shields have a previous conviction for killing a deer with dogs. The pair admitted unlawfully killing the birds and will be sentenced on December 18. They face a maximum six-month jail sentence.

Metro, 30 November 2009, p30.