A PUPPY farmer who was jailed for conning customers into believing they were buying family-raised animals is the man behind a failed bid to open a new breeding unit in a Wye Valley village.

Leigh Hancock, 34, used his former Rodley Road home in Lydney to intensively breed animals for sale, and was caught laundering more than £23,000 in criminally obtained cash, Gloucester Crown Court heard on Friday, November 30.

After being investigated by Gloucestershire trading standards, he subsequently moved to Old Dry Arch Cottages in Marstow near Whitchurch, where his application to open an 18-kennel puppy breeding unit was turned down in October after nearly 900 people signed a petition opposing it.

In court, Hancock admitted nine offences of not declaring he was a breeder and making misleading statements to buyers in more than 60 social media adverts, and money laundering. He was jailed for nine months and fined £1,800.

Trading standards investigators discovered that the misleading ads, which implied that the puppies were from a family home instead of a breeding unit, were placed between July 2016 and March 2017.

Hancock made false statements about the puppies’ parents and how they became pregnant to make buyers think the animals had come from a family pet, not a breeder, the court was told.

Gloucestershire Council Trading Standards officers started to receive reports of puppies being sold in the Lydney area and launched an investigation in November 2016.

On March 29, 2017, they swooped on Hancock’s Lydney address and found around 20 adult Golden Retrievers and Labradors kennelled at the rear of the property, and litters of puppies in the back garden in an adapted shed.

More than £5,000 in cash was also found hidden at the property and seized.

Receipt books and business records retrieved from Hancock’s home showed that puppies were being sold on a regular basis.

Hancock subsequently faced one charge of money laundering, having withdrawn £23,134.56 from his bank account on the day of the trading standards’ raid, having been alerted by phone.

The court heard that the father-of-three now had no income.

His scheme for Old Dry Arch Cottage at the A4137/A40 Junction in Marstow was turned down by Herefordshire Council planners in October after 869 people signed an online petion objecting to it.

More than 100 objection letters were sent to the council from villagers, many complaining of dogs barking at the premises, which are inside the Wye AONB.

Marstow Parish Council said in a statement: “There is already frequent loud dog barking – often high pitched – from the present established business and residents fear this will only increase.

“The noises are constant and distressing to local residents and their families.”