Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
196 dead and dying animals.. in home of trainee vet nurse
Mum is banned from keeping pets for 10 years
A TRAINEE vet nurse who kept 196 animals in “appalling” conditions in the squalid flat she shared with her young son has been banned from keeping pets.
Charmaine Collins, 28, had cats, dogs, rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, gerbils, mice, a chipmunk and a bearded dragon lizard in her two-bed home.
When the RSPCA raided the flat in November 2016 they found one rabbit convulsing due to dehydration and two others squashed in boxes the size of cake tins, unable to sit upright.
Magistrates in Poole, Dorset, heard 148 animals were in the flat and a further 48 in a shed in the communal garden.
Every room in the flat, except the bathroom, was stacked with cages. Collins had failed to provide enough food and water, causing the deaths of 61 of the animals. One dead rabbit was so badly decomposed it was crawling with maggots, while 15 had to be put to sleep or died overnight.
Collins was midway through a veterinary nursing degree when she set up a breeding business.
Matthew Knight, prosecuting, said: “The flat was small for her and her son, yet she kept purchasing animals. She failed to provide the most basic care and those animals suffered and died entirely unnecessarily.
“There was a lack of food and water. They were abandoned. It was an appalling environment.”
Ten days after the RSPCA raided the flat in Boscombe, Dorset, Collins went to Holland and bought another 70 rodents, which were also seized.
She admitted six charges relating to the care of animals and was given a 12-month community order alongside the 10-year ban on keeping animals.
David Hurley, mitigating, said: “She acquired animals for breeding, but it got completely and entirely off the scale. The flat was totally overrun.”