A 27-year-old man accused of filming a vicious fatal attack by a dog on a ginger cat was spared jail by a judge on Thursday and told: "Count yourself lucky”.

Justin Thomas Williams, of Lon Ogwen, Bangor, allowed his greyhound-type dog to bite, drag and shake the cat in the South Stack area of Holyhead, Anglesey, in March last year.

He received a 15 weeks suspended jail term and must do 150 hours unpaid work. Williams was also banned from having any animal for five years and has to pay £615 costs.

He admitted causing unnecessary suffering by using a dog called Buster to attack the domestic cat.

Prosecutor Diane Williams told a district judge at Caernarfon court that last year police seized a mobile phone at Williams’s home and a 24 seconds video clip showed the “vicious and cruel” attack on the distressed cat. Last December the defendant received a suspended sentence for disclosing private sexual snaps.

A probation officer said the jobless cannabis smoker was hunting rabbits on a farm that night and Williams claimed the dog went into a bush. The defendant maintained there was no intention to set the dog on the cat and he “accidentally” filmed the savaging.

Defence solicitor Bethan Williams said her client denied encouraging the attack. “The video shows Mr Williams. He’s deliberately filming, he can’t deny that he’s filming the dog attack the cat.

"There’s no evidence he deliberately set the dog on the cat but he certainly doesn’t intervene,” the lawyer said. “It appears the cat passed away.”

District judge Gerallt Jones told Williams: "This is a serious incident. It looks to me as you having pleasure from the distress and cruelty that was going on.

“You did nothing at all to help. Rather than try and assist the cat you took pleasure in filming it and encouraging the dog to do what it did.”

However, he had complied with a community order since the offence.