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Kent has today been named as one of the worst-offending counties in England and Wales for animal cruelty.

In the first statistics of their kind released by the RSPCA, the county came joint-seventh in a list of 59. There were 39 people convicted of a total of 84 offences in 2007.

That is far below the West Midlands - which saw 127 defendants prosecuted for 222 offences - but still nowhere near Herefordshire, where there were no convictions at all.

Steve Dockery, RSPCA chief inspector for Kent, said: "It's sad that there are so many cases in Kent and I'd rather see none at all."

~ Listen: Mr Dockery speaks to kmfm about Kent's figures >>>

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~ See figures for the whole of England and Wales >>>

In the south east region, Kent had the highest number of people convicted, but was third-place in the list for the number of offences defendants were convicted for, behind Greater London (96) and Essex (85).

Although there were no prison sentences handed out in Kent, 19 of the 39 guilty parties were given written cautions.

In Kent, there have been cases where dogs have been used for badger baiting.

Mr Dockery stressed that without the new Animal Welfare Act, which came into force in April 2006, the figures could have been a lot worse.

This is the first time there has ever been a county-by-county breakdown, but, across England and Wales, the cruelty statistics showed: