Two Carlisle women have been jailed for sadistically torturing and killing a friend’s singing parrot.
Tracy Dixon, 47, and Nicola Bradley, 35, were collected from a night out by pal Paul Crooks, who took the women to his Botcherby home in the city at around 5.30am on July 30 last year.
As the women carried on drinking, Mr Crooks went to bed. He woke at 8.30am to find his guests had messed around with shaving foam which had gone over the cage of his African grey parrot, Sparky.
This was cleaned and, as he left his house to go shopping, he told the women to leave the bird alone.
But on returning home Mr Crooks found the women wearing his clothing with Sparky unresponsive and unrecognisable, her head hanging limply out of a cage.
After confronting the pair, he learned the parrot had been covered with Mr Muscle, Brasso, furniture polish, daubed in gloss paint, and also hit with a tea towel. Attempts were also made, a court heard, to feed Sparky to Mr Crooks’ dog before the parrot was dumped into a tumble drier which was switched on.
Mr Crooks was told that Bradley had snapped Sparky’s neck with Dixon reporting the bird to be “gasping” when pulled from the drier. But after police were alerted and the women were interviewed, they sought to blame each other for the shocking cruelty.
Bradley, of Welsh Road, and Dixon, of Warnell Drive, both Carlisle, went on trial last month having denied causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal. But they were found guilty by city magistrates.
Mr Crooks had told the court that singing Sparky was a big hit with his friends, and used to belt out the national anthem plus theme tunes from Coronation Street and Emmerdale.
The women were sentenced at Carlisle Crown Court today when prosecutor Dan Bramhall said Sparky had previously been well and healthy, and a happy bird.
There had been sadistic behaviour by both defendants, said Mr Bramhall, with serious cruelty inflicted.
In an impact statement, Mr Crooks spoke of since suffering from anxiety, panic attacks and also struggling to sleep.
“In terms of not having Sparky around any more it’s not been the same without her,” he said. “The house is so quiet without her now and she’s been a huge miss.”
Judge Richard Archer, who heard both women still sought to blame the other for what had happened, jailed them for 25 months apiece. Both were banned from owning or keeping animals indefinitely.
“You, together, sadistically tortured and essentially killed Sparky,” said Judge Archer. “It is frankly beyond comprehension how anyone could treat an animal in his way.
