There's a grave injustice being done in British courtrooms and no-one seems to be doing anything about it.

I'm talking of the vastly different sentences imposed on people who have committed similar crimes. It's all down to where you live and which JP happens to be sitting on the Bench that day.

Two recent cases of animal cruelty have finally stirred me to sound off, although, having covered courts for more than 20 years, I could have said the same about hundreds of other cases.

Last month, a 29-year-old Derbyshire mother of three was found guilty of causing unnecssary suffering.

An RSPCA inspector had found two cats in a filthy pen in the woman's back garden. They were locked up and surrounded by cat faeces - some of which was in their food bowls. The animals had been "completely neglected", the inspector said. There was no food or water for them, both were emaciated to the point that he could feel their hips, their eyes were sunken, both were full of worms and one had an eye full of pus because an in-growing eyelash had not been removed.

Pretty revolting, we'd all agree. But though I wouldn't argue with the 20-year ban on keeping animals, imposed by magistrates in Ilkeston, I can't for the life of me see that she deserved being jailed for a month.

This was a woman (incredibly, a former veterinary nurse) with a baby and two other children to look after and you might think that their welfare would count as more important than making an example of people who treat poor little moggies in such a way.

Still, magistrates have their own pet hates, just like anyone else, and they no doubt felt entitled to use the powers at their disposal.

But contrast this case with the toe-curling story of squalor that emerged in Bishop Auckland last week, when two sisters, who had judged at Crufts, were convicted of keeping 83 dogs in "sickening conditions".

The Northern Echo devoted much of its front page and Page 3 to the case on Friday and the superb use of pictures of conditions inside the sisters' gothic mansion said more than words could ever do. For those who missed it, RSPCA officers discovered up to six inches of excreta on carpets; pups locked up without food or water; dogs in containers too small for them to turn around in; and whole dog skeletons lying outside the house.

The Echo said the stench that hit the RSPCA inspectors when they visited the house left them gagging for fresh air.

What stinks even more is the sentence. The sisters were ordered to pay £500 each towards the RSPCA's costs in housing the dogs - and banned from keeping animals for TWO YEARS. Even this brought gasps from the public gallery, with one woman yelling "No, you can't" as the JPs ruled that the RSPCA should take ownership of the dogs.

Such differences in sentencing make a mockery of justice. Crown court judges are often pilloried in the press for what are seen as excessively harsh or lenient sentences, but there are examples such as this in the relative obscurity of magistrates' courts up and down the land, day after day.

Here at HoldTheFrontPage, we think the press has a duty to expose such double standards. We'd like to do our bit by illustrating some of the worst examples. Let us know of any in your patch by by clicking here to e-mail us.

Anything that really gets your goat, or just pushes your buttons? Heaven or hell, tell us about it.
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