Campaigner gets 5-year animal ban

A WILDLIFE campaigner who ran a sanctuary supported by celebrities such as Joanna Lumley and Simon Cowell has been banned from keeping animals for five years.

Disgraced Sara Ross, 64, left horses standing up to their knees in faeces, 15 cats and dogs locked together in a caravan and birds in tiny cages.

Shocked volunteers who worked at the sanctuary where Ross also lived in Dorney, Bucks, were so horrified by conditions they blew the whistle and called the RSPCA.

Judge Sophie Toms, sitting at Reading Magistrates’ Court, heard that many of the animals had been seized by the RSPCA and the remaining ones would be rehomed by the charity.