sympathies are to the goat ...

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Courtesy of the BBC

A man drank 12 pints of cider at a party before stealing a pet goat and taking it for a ride in a stolen car, magistrates in Neath have been told.
Carl Myles, 20, of Trallwn, Swansea, untethered the animal and bundled it into the back of a farmer's Volvo before taking to the wheel.

He was given a two-year ban and told to carry out 120 hours unpaid work after admitting aggravated vehicle taking.

Snowy the goat died two days after her ordeal, her owner has revealed.

Appearing in court last Friday, Myles said he could not remember anything about the incident on 4 July - apart from having his face pushed down in the mud when he was caught.

Magistrates were told that Myles has spotted Snowy the goat as he walked past a smallholding in Skewen, near Swansea.

He untethered the goat's rope and led him off moments before breaking into the car and bundling the startled animal into the back seat.

But the car's owner farmer Huw Leyshon, who lives nearby, heard it being driven off and blocked the lane with a tractor.

Prosecutor Hayley Fackrell said: "Myles then reversed the car in panic and hit Mr Leyshon's tractor.

"The farmer pulled Myles out of the car - then looked into the back seat and was surprised to see a large white goat."

Defending, Huw Davies asked: "Did you know you had a goat with you and did you have any intention of driving the vehicle on the road?" Myles replied: "No."

District Judge Richard Williams told Myles: "It seems to me you did this purely out of immense stupidity."

After the court case, farmer Huw Leyshon, whom Myles was ordered to pay almost £1,400 in compensation, said it was one of the most bizarre things he had ever seen.

"While I had him pinned down I looked in the back of the car in case he had anyone with him and there was a big goat lying down on the back seat," he said.

"We've got a little goat ourselves but this was a big white thing on the end of a long rope about 50m long.

"I thought it was me who was drunk, I thought I was seeing things. I couldn't believe it."

On Wednesday, Snowy the goat's owner Terry Batt, the superintendent at Skewen Park, said he thought the animal would have been very frightened.

Snowy was his seven-year-old granddaughter's pet and she was "quite upset", he said.