Jailed, man who let a 4ft crocodile roam around rented house
AN EXOTIC pet collector who kept a 4ft crocodile and 23 snakes in appalling conditions has been jailed.
Lee Thompson held the South American spectacled caiman in a shallow pen in his bedroom in westcliff-on-Sea, Essex.
when police raided the rented home they also found 16 live snakes, including two albino cobras, four spitting cobras, a rattlesnake, python and scorpion.
The snakes had no food, water or heat source and were kept in poorly-ventilated plastic boxes. Seven of the snakes were dead and had been left to decompose, with the survivors taken into the care of the RSPcA.
RSPcA inspector Rebecca Benson told the court: ‘Before we even entered the room we could smell a strong scent of faeces and rotting flesh.
‘Inside the bedroom, we found the crocodile contained only in tarpaulin and flimsy wooden boards.
‘ The crocodile had no clean water and its heat lamp was unsecured and the animal could have easily knocked the lamp. none of the snakes had access to food or clean water and were being kept in plastic boxes with holes in them.’
Thompson, 36, known as ‘snake’ because of a tattoo on his neck, was jailed for 26 weeks after failing to attend his trial at Basildon Magistrates’ court in August.
He was convicted in his absence of four counts of animal cruelty.
Police finally caught up with him in wallingford, Oxfordshire, on September 11 and he was sentenced at Basildon crown court last wednesday.
He was given a ten-year ban from keeping dangerous wild animals without a licence in 2009.