Revealed: the man who killed 10,000 dogs

The secret slaughter of at least 10,000 racing greyhounds by one man has been exposed by an undercover investigation.

For the past 15 years David Smith, a builders’ merchant, has been killing healthy greyhounds no longer considered by their trainers to be fast enough to race. He buries them in a one-acre plot at the back of his home in Seaham, Co Durham.

Last week The Sunday Times covertly filmed Smith on two consecutive days receiving greyhounds from trainers before killing them with a bolt gun, dumping them in the plot and covering over the “graves” using a mechanical digger.

He told an undercover reporter it took him three years to fill the field, at which point he simply started all over again. “Within a year the bodies have gone,” said Smith. “It takes me about three years to get across there and by the time I get there I can start back here again and there are only a few bones left.”

According to Sunday Times calculations and testimony of two racing insiders, it is conservatively estimated Smith has killed at least 10,000 dogs.