A COUPLE who kept a menagerie of more than 60 animals at their home at Ashbury Station near Okehampton were banned for life from keeping animals by Cullompton Magistrates Court this week.
Alan and Tracy Lear pleaded guilty to 16 charges of causing unnecessary suffering to 14 Muscovy and Saxony ducks, cockerels, geese, hens, guinea pigs, rabbits, cats, a pheasant and hen, in a case brought by the RSPCA.
They denied a further nine charges which the RSPCA accepted, but
admitted failing to dispose of a sheep carcass properly.
The case was brought after RSPCA officers visited their smallholding last June — magistrates were shown a video of the scene during the hearing on Monday.
John Wyatt, prosecuting for the RSPCA, said: 'They caused suffering to 67 animals. There was no intentional cruelty, but the conditions were in the society's view wholly unsuitable.'
He said the RSPCA had spent £17,000 on veterinary care and boarding for the animals.
The court heard that an ndependent vet, Philip Davies, had inspected the Lear's 10-acre smallholding.
He said the smell was overpowering, animals were cramped in small cages, there were undisposed of dead animals, no ventilation and no clean water available.
He said: 'The sheer scale of animal suffering over many months is remarkable.'
Mike Butler, defending, said the Lears, who are part-time bus drivers, 'got out of their depth' but said the 'irony and tragedy' of the case was that they loved animals.
He said they were 'enthusiastic amateurs' who now faced the shame and embarrassment of being convicted of cruelty to animals.
The magistrates banned the couple from keeping animals, ordered the remaining animals at the smallholding to be removed and those in boarding to be forfeited.
No order was made for the £3,000 prosecution costs.