A couple have been sentenced for “dog-napping” a valuable French bulldog which vanished from a woman’s front garden.

Leonard Evans, 38, and Emma Roberts, 34, both of Bron Heulog, Llangefni, Anglesey, denied the offence but were found guilty of stealing £1,500 Bruce the bulldog at Pwllheli in August. They disputed intending to sell the two-year-old pet.

Evans received a six months suspended jail term and must do 180 hours unpaid work, thinking skills sessions, pay £50 compensation for the distress caused and £712 costs.

Court chairman Elfed ap Gomer said the offence occurred within a week of Evans, a cleaner, being placed on another court order.

Roberts, unemployed, was placed under a twelve months community order with 150 hours unpaid work and rehabilitation. She must pay £50 compensation and £680 costs.

The defendants said friendly Bruce had run out and followed them as they walked in the street and they intended to find his owner. But Evans’s brother Benjamin told magistrates at Caernarfon he’d been pleading with them to return the dog which he realised belonged to his landlady Catrin Tudor.

The dog had been taken to his flat. He’d seen Miss Tudor “hysterical” and asking people if they’d noticed the dog which Roberts had called “Brutus.”

Benjamin Evans claimed: "They told me to keep my mouth shut.”

Prosecutor Julia Galston said Bruce was recovered by police, seemingly scared and “desperately thirsty,” the next day, after a Facebook appeal when Roberts was spotted at a bus stop with the dog.

Miss Tudor said in a statement read to the court: "Bruce is my world. I was so relieved to be reunited with him. The incident has left me terrified.”

She added :”It was as if someone had stolen a member of the family.”

The magistrates said the defendants had intended to sell the dog. A probation officer said they still maintained their innocence.