EVENING NEWS (Edinburgh, UK) 12 May 05 £200 fine for 'ridiculed' city man who kept alligator in flat
A man who kept a dangerous alligator in his 15th storey Edinburgh flat was today ordered to pay a reduced fine after a sheriff heard he had been constantly ridiculed for his stupidity.
Sheriff Kenneth MacIver heard that Anthony Quinn, 35, had been humiliated by a stream of taunts and abuse after his story first appeared in the press.
Fining Quinn a reduced amount of £200, Sheriff MacIver said: "You have been subjected to some derision perhaps because of the fact that this was such a ridiculous, reckless and stupid act which led you to being humiliated."
The sheriff also gave Quinn credit for having made a donation of £400 to the SSPCA following the incident.
Quinn bought the four-foot reptile over the internet for £250 and kept it in his bath. He fed the hungry female on brown trout and frozen mice from a pet shop.
He was only caught when an undercover animal welfare officer answered a magazine advert he had placed in a bid to re-sell the illegal alligator for £400.
SSPCA chief inspector James Cormack joined a plain clothed police constable to meet Quinn at a Comet store car park in Glasgow Road, Edinburgh.
They expected to find a 12 inch baby, but were stunned to see an unmuzzled, unrestrained four to five-year-old caiman alligator in the boot of Quinn’s Vauxhall Cavalier.
They rescued the traumatised reptile and sent it to a sanctuary with plans to return it to South America.
The married man had tried to care for the alligator by setting up a make-shift heater near his bath, but the room temperature was still too cold.
Quinn, of Kirkgate House, Constitution Street, Leith, Edinburgh, pleaded guilty to keeping a wild animal between May 26 and July 7, last year without a licence, causing it unnecessary suffering and endangering others.
£200 fine for 'ridiculed' city man who kept alligator in flat