Mum banned for cruelty to cat

6:23pm Wednesday 14th May 2008

A mother-of-three has been banned from owning and keeping animals for ten years after she left her cat to suffer with a prolapsed bowel.

When an RSPCA vet surgically removed the prolapse, blowfly maggots emerged from it, Bradford magistrates heard today.

Carmel Lawson, 31, pleaded guilty to causing unnecessary suffering and failing to get help from a vet.

But her solicitor Phillipa Murray said her client thought the cat, Alice, had no longer been her responsibility because it had moved out some 18 months earlier and was being fed by next-door neighbours.

However the Animal Welfare Act 2006 states the owner always has ultimate responsibility and Lawson had admitted owning Alice, who was 12, since she was a kitten.

The RSPCA was tipped off last July about Alice's condition while a pregnant Lawson had been pre-occupied with her father's death, an ill mother, looking after her children, holding down two part-time jobs and providing for her family - which included a partner off sick, said Miss Murray.

In a statement Lawson claimed the neighbours had called round to her then home in Whiteways, Bradford, the day before the RSPCA got involved, asking for a catbox because Alice was ill.

But prosecutor Nigel Monaghan said the neighbours said they had taken their own phone round to Lawson so she could ring the PDSA for help, but she had refused.

RSPCA inspectors took the cat to vet Graham Codd who recommended she be put to sleep. The vet estimated Alice had suffered from the prolapse for a minimum of 18 to 24 hours and was of the opinion it could have been cured if treated earlier.

Magistrates ordered Lawson to pay £250 towards the RSPCA's court costs and put her on six months community service with supervision.

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