>>3216969meanwhile, in Leicestershire...
A 48-year-old man has been given a suspended sentence after having sex with a horse who he “treated as his girlfriend”.
The owner of the animal said she had become suspicious of Smith – who had his own horses – because of previous incidents.
She told a court how she went into her stable block one evening to find Smith standing on a wooden crate having sex with the mare, called Ruby.
At Leicester Magistrates’ Court today (Wednesday) he was given a suspended jail sentence.
The court heard Ruby’s owner had suspicions about Smith, having previously spotted him coming out of her stable block with his shirt untucked and doing up his flies one day in 2016.
Sally Bedford, prosecuting, said Ruby’s owner had been leaving her stables in the Hinckley area on March 10 when she spotted Smith sitting in his car at Burbage Common.
She said: “She left at 5pm and noticed the defendant sat in a layby.
“She later spoke to her partner and they both went back to the stables, suspecting something untoward was occurring.
“Inside, she saw the defendant stood behind her horse on a wooden crate, holding his t-shirt up, and he had the mare’s tail in his hand and was pressing hard against the mare’s rear end.”
After Smith was arrested the police searched his static caravan in Hinckley Road, Sapcote, where they found ten soiled nappies, women’s underpants and a teddy bear.
The court heard that when the woman had mentioned to Smith she might sell Ruby, he replied: “You can’t sell Ruby. She’s my mate.”
She said: “George looks at Ruby as some kind of partner or girlfriend.
“He seems fixated on her while I doubt he even knows my other horses’ names.”
