Student threw hamster against wall

A STUDENT played catch with a hamster before killing it by hurling it against a wall, a court heard.

A STUDENT played catch with a hamster before killing it by hurling it against a wall, a court heard.

Harry Clay, 19, was found guilty of causing unnecessary suffering to the tan-coloured dwarf hamster called Podge following a three-day trial at Basingstoke Magistrates' Court last month.

He was handed a 12 month supervision order, banned from keeping hamsters for a year and ordered to do 150 hours of community work.

The court heard that the RSPCA was alerted to the incident by Sparsholt College near Winchester, Hampshire, after staff there were approached by students who had witnessed Clay kill the hamster on February 24 this year outside halls of residence on the college grounds.

Clay, of Darracott Road, Bournemouth, had seen another student holding their hamster and when it was passed to him he threw it up into the air several times before dropping it on the floor.

After being thrown and then dropped from about 15ft, Podge was still alive. Another student then picked him up but Clay took Podge back and hurled him at a wall before dropping his lifeless body into a nearby dustbin.

Clay, a fishery management student at the college, said he thought the hamster had a broken leg when it was first given to him to hold and that he eventually decided to kill it by throwing it against the wall to end its suffering.