A judge and a magistrate sent a strong message last Friday when they sent two men to Westgate Correctional Facility for preying on the defenceless.

In the first case, Acting Senior Magistrate Carlisle Greaves jailed a man for nine months for burying his Pitbull Terriers alive.

It is mind-boggling that any person could be so cruel as to bury his own pets alive. The pain that the animals went through before they died does not bear thinking about. The shame is that the man was sentenced in Magistrates? Court and could only be sentenced to a maximum term of a year in prison; as it was, because he pleaded guilty, he will spend nine months behind bars.

Bermuda?s legislators should consider lengthening the maximum term for these kinds of offences. It is likely that when the law was first drafted, this kind of depravity was not countenanced.

Nonetheless, this should send out a message to those who behave this way. They will pay for their cruelty, even though no amount of time in Westgate will make this man suffer the way that his dogs did.

It is worth noting that part of the man?s justification for this terrible act (rather than calling a vet or the SPCA) was that Pitbulls are on the banned dog list.

This again shows the sheer wrong-headedness of the policy because nothing could demonstrate better that the problem with ?bad dogs? is not the breed but the owner.

It is also a perfect example of the ?law of unintended consequences?. In trying to rid the Island of dangerous dogs, Government may have contributed to a far worse offence because it is possible that the man would have notified the animal authorities that he was having a problem with his dogs if he was not aware that they were illegal. Instead, he performed this act of unimaginable cruelty.

In the second case, Puisne Judge Charles-Etta Simmons jailed a man for five years after he admitted stealing cheques from an elderly woman and forging them to the tune of $9,000. The court was told that he would have signed even more, but the account was overdrawn.

Here Mrs. Justice Simmons was able to bring the full force of the law to bear with her stronger sentencing powers and it must be presumed that those who think that the elderly are an easy target will be aware than when they are caught, they will have plenty of time to repent in prison.

Sadly, these kinds of offences are all too common. Both cases demonstrate how people will prey on the community?s most vulnerable ? animals who cannot defend themselves and senior citizens who are either naive or believe that the kind of civility and good neighbourliness that once typified Bermuda still exists.

As the victim?s son said: ?We are heading towards a Bermuda where people who would help people and give them a glass of water, will not help and will lock up their doors.?

He added: ?Fortunately this wasn?t a violent crime, it was a theft.?

It may not have been violent, but it did something which may have been worse. It robbed an elderly woman of her faith in the essential goodness of human beings. And what could be worse than that?