With his chained-up rottweilers looking on, the bearded and bespectacled Smith led the lithe racing dogs — one a fawn- coloured brindle and the other black with white markings — across his plot and into a breeze-block shed.

The animals appeared sprightly and alert as if they hoped they might soon be allowed off the lead for a run. But seconds later two sharp reports rang out. They had been killed.

Anyone who had worked in an abattoir would have recognised the sounds as the discharging of a bolt gun, a weapon that fires a metal bar with enough force to smash the toughest skull.

The dogs emerged lifeless and limp in Smith’s bloodied wheelbarrow. He dumped them in a freshly dug hole on one side of his one-acre garden before covering the grave with earth using a mechanical digger.

Smith contemplated his garden for a moment with a look of satisfaction. On the other side of his plot his lettuces were coming up nicely. read more