Serial offender jailed for stealing his own horses

A man who has already commited a string of offences has been jailed for stealing his own horses, which had been seized for fly-grazing.

Stealing horses

Thomas Hope Price, 29, was arrested along with his father Thomas Tony Price for the theft of nine horses, which had been removed from a playing field in Ely in March 2013 by Cardiff council.

The horses were taken to a field for seized horses, where they became council property.

Later that day a yellow horsebox was spotted next to the field. Three men and a woman were reported stealing horses by a witness who took down the registration plate.

‘I know nothing’

Police identified the lorry as belonging to the Price family and were able to track them down. According to the prosecutor Nick Gedge the police stopped the lorry and a man got out of the passenger door and walked away.

Gedge said to the court: “He told an officer, ‘I know nothing about it, I am out for a walk – where the hell am I’.That was Thomas Hope Price. The horses were discovered along with many others in the back of the lorry.”

Previous offences

Price is from a family which is known for breeding and trading horse. They reportedly own more than 2000 equines, which are kept at various locations across Wales and the west of England .

Price has 50 previous offences relating to cruelty to horses. At the time of his court hearing he was serving a 12 month prison sentence for the non-payment of £43,000 of court costs from a previous trial.

Prior to this he had been jailed for 23 weeks in July 2013, after pleading guilty to 42 charges, which included causing unnecessary suffering to 18 horses. His father – who is also a serial offender – was found guilty of 57 offences and sentenced to 26 weeks in jail. Both were banned for keeping horses for five years.

Must be punished

Judge David Wynn Morgan said while Price was probably not the one who instigated the theft he “must be properly punished to deter others”.

“It mustn’t be thought in the community that because you are in effect a tool of somebody else you will not be punished,” he said.

Price was sentenced him to a further eight weeks in prison and ordered him to pay an £80 victim surcharge.