AN angry truck driver throttled a neighbour’s cockerel over its “incessant” crowing at 3am.
Sleep-deprived Caroline Smith, 52, said she seized the bird, called Eddie, by the throat after “six months” of its crack-of-dawn cacophony.
Afterwards she was seen standing over it, shouting: “I’m sick of it — but I’ve sorted it.”
Eddie was taken to a vet who said asphyxiation had caused a brain injury.
But the bird recovered within a week and returned to crow again.
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Houseboat-occupier Smith had previously complained to Eddie’s owner Justine Carroll, who was also moored on a stretch of the Leeds and Liverpool canal in Adlington, Lancs.
But attempts to rehome the bird had failed.
Anne McDonald, prosecuting for the RSPCA at Wigan magistrates’ court, said another canal boat owner was a witness.
Representing herself, married Smith said: “Sleep deprivation almost cost me my job as a long-distance lorry driver.
“Cockerels are not allowed on these moorings.
“You can keep laying hens — but cocks, no.
“I was at my wits’ end and got very angry.
“I’m sorry about the whole episode.
“I didn’t want to harm it, I just wanted it removed.”
Smith, now of Houghton, Lancs, admitted causing unnecessary suffering.
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She was ordered to pay a £1,296 vet’s bill and complete a 12-month community order and 100 hours of unpaid work.
