What happened at Seaham?
In the summer of 2006 a Sunday newspaper revealed that a man called David Smith had been killing dogs in Seaham, Co. Durham and burying them on his land. Some of the dogs involved were retired racing greyhounds. Whilst some media claimed that as many as 10,000 dogs (including greyhounds) were involved, this has never been substantiated. Indeed, the prosecution during Smith’s subsequent trial on an environmental offence at Durham Crown Court stated that it did not have a figure for the number of dogs involved. Smith denied that the number he killed was anything like that number. Since David Smith’s prosecution, the sport has moved quickly to heavily fine and ban those individuals within greyhound racing found to have been involved.
