A police dog handler left two German Shepherds in the back of his car for seven hours on one of the hottest days of 2009. Both the dogs died from heatstroke when he was distracted by paperwork, a court has heard.

The dog handler, from Nottinghamshire, PC Mark Johnson, was suffering from depression and obsessive compulsive disorder when he forgot the dogs. They were left in the car for several hours when temperatures reached 29.3C (84.7F) in June last year. He denies confining the dogs to the detriment of their wellbeing.

Paul Taylor, prosecuting the case for the RSPCA, told the trial at Nottingham Magistrates' Court: "Jet and Jay-Jay [the dogs] 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. His actions had catastrophic consequences for the two dogs in the car."

Prosecutor Paul 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."

On June 30 last year, PC Johnson, 39, drove his black Ford Mondeo estate to Nottinghamshire Police's HQ in Arnold, just north of Nottingham. He arrived just before 7am and had planned to transfer the dogs to a police car, but it was off the road as the air conditioning system was being fixed. He found another car but there were no mats in the back and when he went to find some he became distracted by a police briefing.

Afterwards, he told his sergeant he wanted to discuss some medical issues with him later in the day but he needed time to do his paperwork. At about 10.30am he planned to let his dogs out of the car, give them water and allow them to stretch their legs, but he became distracted again by a phone call about a missing person.

At noon, he had a meeting with his sergeant about his problems and it was not until nearly 2.30pm that he finally went to check on his dogs. Both were dead in the car. The RSPCA allege Mr Johnson unnecessarily confined his dogs "in an environment that was detrimental to their wellbeing."

PC Johnson was found guilty of animal cruelty and given a six month conditional sentence and ordered to pay a £2500 fine.