THE maximum prison sentence for people convicted of animal cruelty offences should be increased tenfold to five years behind bars, charities have said.

The current six-month maximum custodial term for the worst criminal cases was described as "shocking" and "laughable" by rights groups who want the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) updated with harsher penalties.

Battersea Dogs & Cats Home (BDCH) will launch a campaign on Monday, saying England and Wales lag behind many other western nations in penalising abusers.

The RSPCA and the League Against Cruel Sports also called for increased prison terms, ahead of a parliamentary debate on the subject on Friday.

Raising the maximum sanction to five years in prison would put England and Wales on a par with Northern Ireland and Ireland. In Scotland the current maximum is a year.

Defra figures show the average prison term for someone convicted of animal cruelty is 3.3 months.

The campaign by Battersea Dogs & Cats Home argues that people convicted of serious animal cruelty offences should face harsher sentences.

Here are some recent cases dealt with in courts across England and Wales:

Braintree and Witham Times:

Kieren Milledge

  • On Thursday puppy farmer Sean Kerr, 52, from Solihull, was jailed for six months after being found guilty of causing unnecessary suffering to more than 30 dogs in the West Midlands, including puppies living on floors coated with faeces and bedding soaked with urine. 

Braintree and Witham Times:

Photo issued by the RSPCA of a dog from the puppy farm run by Sean Kerr.

  • In December Christopher Hoar, 31, and his brother Adam, 23, were jailed for six weeks for kicking a hedgehog to death at Dalton Park retail centre at Murton, County Durham, in a case, caught on CCTV, that was described as "horrible" by the judge.

Braintree and Witham Times:

Photo issued by the RSPCA of a hedgehog that Christopher Hoar, 31, and his brother Adam, 23, kicked to death. 

  • John Wilcock, 36, and Bernadette Nunney, 25, were handed suspended sentences and banned from keeping animals for life in November for leaving dozens of dogs in squalid conditions at a farm in Bradford, West Yorkshire, including seven dead and dying puppies left in a wheelbarrow.

Braintree and Witham Times:

Video grab issued by the RSPCA of puppies found at a farm in Bradford, West Yorkshire.

  • Loner Jennifer Lampe, 28, received a four-month suspended sentence in August after she drunkenly decapitated her two snakes with scissors before swallowing their heads at her home in Market Drayton, Shropshire.
  • Vet Gary Samuel, 49, from Enfield, was given a suspended 12-week prison sentence in March 2016 after police found dogs locked in cages in a filthy "pitch-black dungeon" at Armley Vets in Leeds, West Yorkshire.

Braintree and Witham Times:

Photo issued by the RSPCA of the basement where Gary Samuel and Rochelle McEwan kept dogs locked in cages.

  • On Friday Franky Mills, 19, of Farncombe, Surrey, was jailed for a year after an airgun shooting spree in which he killed a family's pet cat and wounded six others in nearby Cranleigh. He received the longer sentence because he was charged with criminal damage and firearms offences.