Maximum sentences for those who commit the most heinous cases of animal cruelty are being increased tenfold by the Government to five years.
Victoria said:
"This was a big campaign that many people wrote to me about because they feel that the current sentencing powers are not big enough.
We're extending it from a maximum sentence of six months to five years.
I think that's very good news for the most serious cases of animal abuse and those people should rightly be imprisoned for such acts of depravity."