Couple banned for life after ponies found living in deplorable conditions

A Lancashire couple have been handed a life ban on keeping animals after four severely neglected ponies were found imprisoned in stables so filed with faeces that they were unable to stand.

Jack Carter and wife Barbara, who bred and showed for 60 years, both pleaded guilty to three animal welfare offences when they appeared before Lancashire magistrates in a prosecution brought by the RSPCA. Alongside a ban, they were sentenced to a 12-week suspended prison sentence and a £500 fine.

The charges against the pair related to four ponies who were found in a ramshackle stable block outside the couple’s home. The ponies – all aged between six and seven years old ­– were discovered by RSPCA inspector Vicki McDonald, who was alerted by a member of the public. Inspector McDonald said: “Inside the first stable, I found a grey pony in a horrendous environmental and physical condition. I’d never seen anything like it in my entire career. The pony was stood on top of deep rotting litter that had built up so much it reached the top of the stable door. The pony was unable to fully stand up and his back protruded through a hole in the stable roof.”

A further three ponies were discovered living in similar rancid conditions. All with overgrown hooves that had begun to corkscrew and sores on their bodies, likely caused by having no choice but to lie in their own rotting waste. Inspector McDonald said: “It was my opinion, based on what I had seen, that it was highly possible these ponies had been in the stables all their lives.”

The RSPCA worked alongside a vet and the police to dig the ponies out of their stables, eventually breaking down wooden walls because the build-up of faeces made the stable doors inaccessible. Sadly, after veterinary examination, all four ponies had to be put to sleep to end their suffering.

Shockingly, Jack Carter then admitted a further five ponies were being kept at a second location and were found by the RSPCA to be in a severely neglected state. They were signed over to the RSPCA for emergency veterinary care, however, after examination, it was found that four of the ponies were suffering and the kindest thing to do was to put them to sleep. The remaining pony has been rehabilitated by the RSPCA and is happily waiting to be rehomed.

Inspector McDonald said: “The severe lack of care and level of suffering endured by these ponies was prolonged, wholly avoidable and totally inexcusable. It was heartbreaking to find them in such a neglectful state and for them, after such an awful life, to be beyond saving.” She added: “The extreme level of neglect I witnessed in this case is unlikely to ever be surpassed and will remain with me.”