House arrest upgraded to jail for North Okanagan horse owner

VERNON – Armstrong senior Gary Roberts will be serving his sentence behind bars rather than in the community.

Yesterday in Vernon Provincial Court, a judge told Roberts he would be spending the rest of his nine-month conditional sentence order in jail. Roberts, 72, was sentenced to house arrest March 14, but breached two of his conditions and was back in court in less than a month.

Roberts, a former school teacher, was convicted in December 2016 of causing unnecessary pain or suffering to an animal and failing to provide the necessities of life.

He was charged after the SPCA seized 16 emaciated horses from his property in rural Armstrong in 2014. In all, Roberts had roughly 130 horses.

The horses were sold at a court-ordered auction in 2015.

Roberts is banned from owning animals for 20 years.

To contact a reporter for this story, email Charlotte Helston or call 250-309-5230 or email the editor. You can also submit photos, videos or news tips to the newsroom and be entered to win a monthly prize draw.

We welcome your comments and opinions on our stories but play nice. We won't censor or delete comments unless they contain off-topic statements or links, unnecessary vulgarity, false facts, spam or obviously fake profiles. If you have any concerns about what you see in comments, email the editor in the link above.