A NEIGHBOUR of a man who keeps 38 dogs at his Witney home told a court he heard barking “every hour of every day”.

Christopher Watts told Witney magistrates he was woken day and night by the noise coming from Roger Sutton’s semi-detached house in Colwell Drive.

Yesterday, Sutton, 62, was fined £2,000 for breaching a noise abatement order served on him last March.

He was warned he could be brought back to court and fined £200 for every day he allows his dogs – mainly bull dogs, Staffordshire bull terriers and presas – to bark excessively.

The court heard from five of Sutton’s neighbours during the trial, which began on Thursday.

They said barking from the dogs, which are kept in cages outside as well as inside the housing association-owned house, kept them awake at night.

Unemployed Sutton denied the charge and claimed the noise came from nearby properties.

Mr Watts, who has lived in nearby Burwell Meadow for more than 10 years, said he had heard barking for three years.

He said: “It has woken me up any hour of the day and night. It’s constant barking and it drives me around the bend.

“It’s every hour of every day.

“I don’t sit outside in the garden because of the constant noise and it’s quite odious out the back as well.”

Quantity surveyor Trevor Hedges, 70, who has lived in Colwell Drive for 22 years, was given recording equipment by West Oxfordshire District Council.

The council’s senior technical officer Neil Shellard said over 12 days in May, Mr Hedges recorded 50 episodes of dogs barking from his downstairs bedroom.

Three recordings were played to the court, taken between 3am and 8am on Thursday, May 14.

Mr Hedges said: “If I’m doing the garden I’ve either got to put up with the noise or wear some defence against it.”

Clive Salisbury, the council’s senior environmental health officer, visited Sutton’s house in October and found four dogs inside the house and 12 in cages in the garden. When he returned in February the number of dogs had increased to 38.

Sutton claimed he owned three of the dogs and looked after family and friends’ pets.

He added: “Every dog that barks around here, I get the blame.”

Sutton was ordered to pay £500 towards the £7,694 court costs, an a £15 victims’ surcharge.

After the court case, next door neighbour David Kerslake, who gave evidence against Sutton, said: “He deserves it.”

Julie Bedford, Blue Cross head of animal behaviour at Burford, said: “We would have grave concerns for the physical and mental welfare of this number of dogs kept in someone’s back garden.”