A FARMER who shot and killed two dogs he found attacking his sheep was fined £100 by magistrates yesterday.

Stephen Medd, 45, took the border collie and golden labrador to an outbuilding on his farm, where he killed each of them with a single shot to the head from his father's gun.

Under the law, farmers can only shoot dogs while they are worrying the animals.

Medd, of Cow House Bank Farm, in Helmsley, North Yorkshire, was charged with criminal damage when he appeared at Scarborough Magistrates' Court yesterday.

He was fined £100 and ordered to pay £70 costs. Magistrates said he should have called the police instead of shooting the animals.

No order for compensation was made, although the dogs are said to have a combined value of £1,000.

Rosie McIlroy, prosecuting, said that the dogs, which belonged to farmer Frederick Fairburn and his wife from Harriet Air Farm, at nearby Rievaulx, had gone missing on August 27.

Neither had a collar or tag, but both were micro-chipped.

The couple reported them missing two days later, but were told by a friend, who had overheard Medd talking, that he had shot them.

The police were called in and Medd admitted that he killed the animals.

The dogs' decomposing bodies were found in an outbuilding at his farm and identified by the Fairburns.

In mitigation, Simon Catterall said Medd had not been carrying a shotgun with him when he came across the dogs, which had killed at least two of his sheep.

He added: "It is prime sheep country and it was common knowledge among neighbours that there had been a great number of sheep savaged by dogs.

"Mr Medd was out checking his sheep. When he was there, he saw two dogs running amok among the sheep. He did not know what to do. They had one of his sheep on the ground and were ripping its throat out.

"The law gives him the right to shoot them if they are there is the process of worrying animals. If that is what he had done, we wouldn't be here today."