Woman who killed dog with samurai sword jailed

Alicia Darcy has been jailed for 18 months after stabbing a dog to death

A woman who stabbed a dog to death with a samurai sword has been jailed.

Alicia Darcy, of Platt Avenue in Sandbach, Cheshire, called police while intoxicated on 12 October 2024 and told them she had killed her son's dog after it attacked her.

Officers found the dog on a sofa in a "sleeping position" with the sword embedded in its torso, Cheshire Police said.

Darcy, 54, was jailed for 18 months at Chester Crown Court on Friday after she admitted causing unnecessary suffering to an animal and possession of an offensive weapon at an earlier hearing.

She was also handed a lifetime disqualification order, preventing her from owning or keeping dogs.

The sword will be destroyed.

PC Charlotte Owen described it as a "very distressing case" for everyone involved.

"The level of cruelty was abhorrent. She left the dog to die with the sword embedded in it," she said.

"It is incomprehensible how someone could not only inflict such violence on an animal but then be so callous as to leave it to suffer."