A MAN has been ordered to pay more than £1,000 after a dog killed more than a dozen sheep in a field outside York.

As The Press reported in September, the incident occurred on land close to Stockton on the Forest Golf Club, where a flock of sheep were being kept by arrangement with a local landowner, and 11 were killed and several more injured in two attacks by a dog overnight on September 23 and 13.

Hendrick Coetzee, 28, of Stockton on the Forest, appeared before Northallerton Magistrates’ Court on Friday to face two counts of being in charge of a dog that is worrying sheep on agricultural land.

Coetzee pleaded guilty to both counts, and was fined £300, ordered to pay court costs of £30, and compensation totalling £1,090.58 to farmer Derek Johnson for the attacks on the sheep.

Mr Johnson said he was happy to see an end to the matter, but was not confident he would benefit from the compensation.

He said: “I thought the sentence was rather light, £150 for each of the offences, not each of the animals. The interesting thing was they added it to funds he already owed the court, which means I’m only going to get one ninth of £25. It’s going to be about five years before I see the money repaid.”

Magistrates did not order the dog to be destroyed, but North Yorkshire Police arranged for the animal to be rehomed in another part of the country.

Mr Johnson said: “I’m fully relieved it’s not coming back to the village, and I have the police to thank for that.

“PC Sarah Ward arranged that, and if not for her, then I would not have been able to keep my sheep safely. I’m very surprised magistrates said they didn’t have powers to keep it away from the village, that shocked me, but I’m grateful to the police for arranging for it to be rehomed, they’ve been brilliant.”