A DOG owner has been banned from all Camden’s parks for two years after letting his giant rottweiler run wild.
At a Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court hearing on Thursday, Thomas Moore-Donald, 54, was handed a list of open spaces he must stay away from.
The ban is part of an anti-social behaviour order which can only be lifted by a successful appeal through the court system.
If Moore-Donald, of Phylis Hodges House in Chalton Street, Camden Town, returns to any of the borough’s parks, he could be arrested, brought back to court and face a jail term of up to five years. He did not contest the order.
The no-go areas include Waterlow Park in Highgate, Talacre Open Space in Kentish Town, Hampstead Cemetery in West Hampstead, Pond Square in Highgate and St Martin’s Gardens in Camden Town.
It does not include Camden’s largest green spaces, Hampstead Heath or Regent’s Park, because neither are managed by the Town Hall.
The order was sought by Camden Council after terrified park users complained that Moore-Donald failed to control his bulky pet rottweiler while he drank and chatted with friends.
The court heard that in one alarming incident the dog bit a council groundsman.
The council insists that attempts to get Moore-Donald to exercise better supervision of the dog ended in failure when the requests were completely ignored.
Moore-Donald was a familiar face among street drinkers who gathered in St Andrew’s Gardens and Oakley Square Gardens in Camden Town.
The court order also bans him from making excessive noise in his flat after a series of complaints from neighbours.
After the hearing, the Town Hall’s leisure chief, Labour councillor Phil Turner, said: “We have responded to concerns from the vast majority of residents who behave responsibly in parks to ensure they are not deterred from enjoying them by a small number of individuals’ anti-social action.”