VIDEO: Dogs left to rot in filthy hovel by mum and daughter

6:00am Friday 10th July 2009

By Kathie Griffiths

A Bradford magistrate told a mum and daughter that their filthy home was not “fit for a dog” as they appeared in court on animal cruelty charges.

The bench was told the stench in the house in Buttershaw, Bradford, was so bad it drove police and RSPCA officers outside in need of fresh air.

Its occupants June Aston, 49, and Janet Boyes, 29, were yesterday banned from keeping, owning or having anything to do with animals for ten years.

Aston, now of Coseley, Wolverhampton, and Boyes, now of Summerbridge Crescent, Thorpe Edge, admitted eight charges of causing a St Bernard unnecessary suffering and two of failing to suitably home German Shepherd dogs.

A visibly-outraged chairman of the bench, Brian Outlaw, told the court it was the worst case he had ever dealt with.

After months of vet treatment costing more than £2,000, the St Bernard called Misty – which possibly had not been fed for months – had to be put down, he was told.

Magistrates were shown a series of sickening photographs of the dog and the house in Reevy Crescent where she and two German Shepherd dogs were kept.

The images were of a filthy kitchen scattered with unwashed and mouldy pots and pans, floors heaped with clothes, litter and caked in excrement and a bathroom blackened and soaked with dirt.

Mr Outlaw described the house as a hovel, over-run with rubbish and strewn so much with dog excrement that even the RSPCA inspector “could not find anywhere to stand without standing in it”.

After making the ten-year ban he told the pair in the dock: “You are not to have anything to do with animals right down to a mouse.

“It is clear to the court that you are not even able to do that. When you took on a St Bernard what did you think you were taking on?

Nigel Monaghan, for the RSPCA, described how the St Bernard was found severely underweight with her ribs, hips and spine poking through her coat that was so matted in faeces and urine that it took vets three hours under anaesthetic to clean up.

She also had inward curling eyelids causing her great pain and a urine infection.

During the months she was hospitalised she collapsed several times and a heart problem was found most likely brought on by her past emaciated state.

Aston and her daughter had claimed they were not living full-time at the house when the animals were found last July after a member of the public called in the RSPCA.

The whole case, covering the inspectors’ work, vets bills and legal fees cost the animal charity £4,706.

Mr Outlaw told the mum and daughter: “We would have loved to have charged you with the full costs but we can’t because of your means, you are both on benefits. This hovel was not fit for dogs.”

Magistrates ordered Aston and Boyes to contribute between them a total of £520 towards the costs.

Aston was also ordered to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work in the community and Boyes was given a one year supervision order with a focus on “enhanced thinking skills”.

After the case, RSPCA Inspector Emma Brook said of the ten-year ban: “This is the result we wanted.”