A horse seller whose pet Labrador was shot dead by a farmer when the dog attacked and killed his sheep has been told to pay £1,200.

Victoria Yoxall, 56, was hauled to court and prosecuted after her Golden Labrador mauled three lambs to death on fields in Upton Priory, near Macclesfield, Cheshire.

Farmer Richard Sidebottom shot the hound dead with a shotgun when it carried on savagely attacking his Beltex-cross sheep on April 20 this year, despite pleas to stop.

A neighbour had alerted the farmer when she heard the collarless Labrador barking ‘intensely’ at the flock.

Yoxall, who runs a horse-trading business from her £370,000 home in Tytherington, near Macclesfield, had initially denied her Labrador was responsible for the sheep killings.

But at Crewe magistrates’ court she admitted one charge of being a person in charge of a dog worrying livestock and one charge of causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal, as her solicitor said: ‘This has been a big wake-up call for her.’

Michael O’Kane, prosecuting, said Mr Sidebottom’s neighbour, named only as Miss Towle, had spotted the Labrador on the fields with a springer spaniel.

‘The sheep were acting strangely in the field. She says that she went out to investigate what was happening and she approached the dogs. She saw neither of the dogs were wearing collars,’ he said.

‘She says the springer spaniel did not approach the sheep or lambs that were in the field. However the Labrador did start to bark at the sheep and lambs.’

The neighbour tried calling at the dog to stop, but when that failed she phoned Mr Sidebottom to alert him to what was happening.

‘Mr Sidebottom was very concerned when he received the call. He had recently lost livestock from a dog attack prior to that,’ Mr O’Kane continued.

‘When he received the call, he was working on his farm and he went back to the property to retrieve his shotgun.

‘He thought he may need to use it.’

When Mr Sidebottom arrived the Labrador was chasing the sheep and biting at them.

He tried to catch it but ‘the dog ran off and down the field where it confronted a sheep and a lamb’.

Mr O’Kane added: ‘It went to grab the lamb, the mother stood up to the dog and butted the dog. He had to make a decision to protect his flock and he took the decision to shoot the dog.

‘After the dog was shot it was described as being full of adrenaline and continued to run. He dispatched the dog so that it was in no more pain.’

The farmer then discovered three dead lambs in the field and said as a result of the attack the flock was distressed and dispersed over the field.

‘A number of lambs were mis-mothered. They were all mixed up essentially by the flock being chased around the field,’ Mr O’Kane said.

‘He says his son and daughter spent four hours working with the flock to get the mis-mothered lambs back with their respective mothers.

‘The defendant was interviewed in relation to what took place. She said that she was working in the area close by.

‘She had attended not long before the incident took place with her two dogs. Her dogs were accustomed to being in that area.

‘She accepted that they were not wearing collars, they were not wearing leads, that it was her dog that was out of control. That it was her Labrador in the field.’

It emerged Mr Sidebottom had lost another 20 lambs in similar circumstances just days earlier when the flock was attacked by a German Pointer being walked off its lead by its owner.

In mitigation Yoxall’s solicitor, Callum Starr, said: ‘This has been a big wake-up call for her and of course, sadly, she lost her dog in the incident. She has got no previous convictions. She lives on her own. She sells horses for a living. She is self-employed.’

Yoxall was fined £288, ordered to pay £600 in compensation plus £315 in costs and surcharge.

JP Richard Bower told her: ‘I appreciate that this has been quite a distressing incident for both you and the farmer all round.’