A WIRRAL thug who snapped a puppy's legs today, Friday, had his 24 week jail sentence reduced by a month.

Stefan McCormick appealed against the sentence which he was given by magistrates last October and after a hearing at Liverpool Crown Court it was reduced to 20 weeks.

He is currently also serving a 20 month prison sentence for assaulting his 17-year-old ex-partner and breaching a non-molestation order in Hoylake while on bail for the brutal attack on his Staffordshire Bull Terrier, Ty.

23-year-old McCormick, of Devonshire Road, Prenton, admitted the offences involving his former girlfriend and also pleaded guilty to causing unnecessary suffering to an animal.

The dog's injuries, sustained in December 2013, were so bad he “screamed” when examined by a vet, who was left with no option but to put him down.

It is believed he had either swung it into a solid object or forcibly prised its legs apart.

Liverpool Crown Court heard that McCormick had previously threatened to snap the dog's legs and the judge Recorder Mark Halliwell said: "The most likely situation is that you did precisely that and prised its legs apart.

"Its paws were bent over and it had bilateral fractures and it would have left the dog in extreme pain," said the Recorder, who was sitting with two magistrates.

They ordered that because of his early guilty plea, his mental health problems and the principle of totality the sentence should be reduced but it is still to run consecutively to the other sentence he is serving.

An RSPCA officer was called to McCormick’s home after McCormick claimed that the dog had been hit by a car outside his home. But the officer who attended quickly concluded something more sinister had happened.

Bernice Campbell, defending, said today: "He wants people to know this is genuine remorse, not just flippant, it was a disgusting act.

"He is in prison and every day he thinks about it and is sickened by it."

He has previous minor convictions and this is his first prison sentence, she said. He had been sectioned under the Mental Health Act in July last year after turning up at a local police station and "making a fuss".

It was after his release from hospital he said he wanted to plead guilty for the offence which happened while he was drunk and which he was unable to recall.