Woman appears in court in animal cruelty case

The cases of a woman charged with multiple counts of animal cruelty and mischief were before the courts Monday and Tuesday.

Sandra Reed Byers (formerly Reed) is currently facing both provincial and criminal charges.

She was charged with 33 counts of animal cruelty by the OSPCA in June, after an investigation that led to the removal of a horse, a goat, three dogs and 22 sheep that were emaciated.

The OSPCA charge is a provincial offence and was before the court on Monday. It’s been pushed back to Nov. 15.

A few months after her OSPCA charge was laid, Reed Byers, 56, was also charged with mischief.

That charge stems from the harassment of the Ellis family, who share a property with Reed Byers.

The rented farmland is off Highway 7 toward Norwood.

Ellis and her family live in the house on the property and Reed Byers lives in an apartment in the barn.

After the Ellis’s confronted Reed Byers about her mistreatment of her animals, Reed Byers began harassing the family.

The mischief charge was also pushed back until Nov. 8.

For both offences, local lawyer Dave McFadden is representing Reed Byers.

The accused used to operate Whisper Ridge Ranch, which she called a horse sanctuary, on the Highway 7 property.

A protest against Reed Byers’s treatment of animals was held outside the farm in 2016.

She was under OSPCA investigation at that time as well.