LAST week, the sound of dogs barking was almost deafening in Centre Square, Middlesbrough.

Dozens of protesters, with dogs on leads, some even with cats in baskets, were gathered outside Teesside Magistrates’ Court.

They were angry, and rightly so. Two men were appearing in court for a shocking case of animal cruelty. They had attempted to euthanise a 16-year-old blind, deaf and incontinent dog by hammering a nail into its head, then burying it in a shallow grave. They didn’t quite finish the job.

Scamp was later found whimpering under ivy-covered ground in Kirkleatham Woods by a couple walking their own dogs. Later that day he had to be put out of his extreme suffering by a vet.

Understandably, the public was furious. This defenceless animal, who died in a hideous way, elicited an intense reaction. The people who came to watch the case from the public gallery were sickened at the grisly details. When the aggressors were sentenced to two months’ imprisonment, a cheer went up outside court. The RSPCA’s prosecuting solicitor John Ellwood received a movie star welcome when he strolled out of court following the case.

Due to a fire in the cells at Teesside Crown Court, some of its remand cases were being held in the magistrates’ court. Just a couple of courtrooms away from Scamp’s hearing, “devious, controlling and manipulative” multiple rapist Michael Dunn, who has been likened to notorious Austrian rapist Josef Fritzl, was being sentenced.

Dunn, of Redcar, had shown no remorse for any of his three schoolgirl and one adult victims, whom he kept locked in a “hidey hole” in a home like a fortress. One of his victims was just ten years old when he raped her in 1978. Another he kept locked up and guarded by two German Shepherds. And another had already been raped by a family member, which he used to win her trust before raping her all over again. The crimes took place when he lived in the Manchester area and continued as he lived in other areas of the country, including Cambridgeshire, Newcastle, Gateshead and finally Redcar.

His victims are still living with the impact of what happened to them, with alcohol problems, anxiety attacks and even suicide attempts.

Yet no one was outside the court to protest on behalf of these courageous victims, whose suffering was no less acute than that of an elderly dog.

People claimed this was because they weren’t aware of the case, that it hadn’t been given as much publicity as that of the dog.

But a quick glance across news outlets showed this wasn’t the case. In fact, social media indignation was far higher in the case of Scamp.

The court protest was organised on Facebook, and a candlelit vigil, followed by a memorial garden for him and for Baby the Bulldog, another victim of animal cruelty who was thrown down a flight of stairs and stamped on. Animal cruelty cases spark a special kind of reaction on social media and elsewhere, and I don’t have a problem with that. But what does it say about our society when we can’t get as upset about rape or violence against adults or children?