A POLICE dog-handler left his two devoted German shepherds to bake to death in the back of his car when he became distracted by paperwork, a British court heard.

The Sun reports Constable Mark Johnson, 39, was suffering from depression and obsessive compulsive disorder which led him to forget his dogs on June 30 last year, it was said.

He returned to his car to find seven-year-old Jet and Jay-Jay, 18 months, lying dead in the trunk.

RSPCA prosecutor Paul Taylor told Nottingham Magistrates' Court that "Jet and Jay-Jay suffered excruciating pain when their handler PC Johnson left them in the boot of his private car".

"PC Johnson's usual routine would have been to have transferred them to a police vehicle which had an air cooling unit but he did not transfer them and went about his business," Mr Taylor said..

"He had some paperwork which needed to be done and by the time he realised what had happened, seven hours had passed and he went out and realised the dogs had died.

"PC Johnson had always been devoted to animals and his dogs in particular - who would have saved his life or got him out of tricky situations on operations in the past.

"I can find no evidence that he harboured any malice towards his dogs or that he would have wished to harm them, but he made an error which nevertheless had fatal consequences for the animals.

"His failure in this case is an aberration of his normal high standards. However his actions had catastrophic consequences for the two dogs in the car."

The RSPCA alleges Johnson unnecessarily confined his dogs "in an environment that was detrimental to their wellbeing".

He denies the charge.

The deaths happened on one of the hottest days of the year, when temperatures reached 29.3C.

Mr Taylor told the court that because dogs cannot sweat, the two German shepherds would have been panting to try to reduce their body heat.

This would have left them severely dehydrated.

Eventually they would have suffered severe kidney damage and cerebral haemorrhage.

The dogs could have died within 20 minutes.

Read more about the German shepherds left to die in the police car at The Sun