A 54-year-old man has been jailed for 90 days for organising a brutal and bloody cockfight.

Joseph Keet showed barbaric behaviour by pitting one animal against another for the sole purpose of enjoying cruelty, Haywards Heath magistrates court heard yesterday.

Keet, from North Mundham, Chichester, was described as the main player in organising the cockfight at his duck nursery in Chichester last April. Cockfighting was banned in the UK 150 years ago.

He was found guilty of causing unnecessary suffering, aiding and abetting, being present at a cockfight and of using his premises for a cockfight.

Keet was sentenced to 90 days for each offence, to run concurrently, and fined £5,000.

He was also banned for life from keeping cockerels.

Sentencing Keet, magistrate Paul Tain said: "I am totally convinced a prison sentence is the only option for this level of cruelty."

An RSPCA special operations unit, together with uniformed RSPCA inspectors and Sussex Police, raided Southgate Duck Nursery at North Mundham after a tip-off.

When they arrived they discovered a cockfight already in progress. A number of men tried to flee the scene but were arrested at the site. One man was arrested at a later date.

An empty video camera was found near a fighting pit and a tape was later recovered showing two cockfighting bouts.

Fifteen cockerels were taken from the premises. One bird was already dead and several others showed new or recent injuries consistent with fighting including swollen eyelids, feather loss and bleeding wounds.

Chief Inspector Mike Butcher, from the RSPCA's special operations unit, said: "Cockfighting is a brutal, barbaric and bloody 'sport' that should have been confined to the history books.

"Sadly there still seem to be groups who ignore the law and take pleasure in the thought of pitting one bird against another to the death."

Nine other men were also fined £400 each yesterday for attending a cockfight.

James Stephen Keet, 29, from Whitehill, West Sussex, Frank Smith, 37, from Tangmere, West Sussex, George Sean Stonestreet, 19, and James Christopher Bird, 21, both from Hailsham, William Green, 28, from Cowplain, Hampshire and Stephen James Harrington, 29, from Horndean, Hampshire, had previously pleaded guilty to the charge.

Bill Smith, 44, from Burgess Hill, admitted attending a cockfight but was found not guilty of aiding and abetting and of causing unnecessary suffering.

Ashley O'Brien, 35, from Fareham, Hampshire and George Ripley, 24, from Westham, East Sussex, both denied causing unnecessary suffering, aiding and abetting and of being of present at a cockfight.

They were acquitted of the first two charges but found guilty of being at the cockfight.