CONVICTED (2008) | Clare Elizabeth Frear (aka Clare Taylor), born 15/04/1985, of 8 Juno Street, Nelson BB9 8RH – failed to get treatment for a cat that had been microwaved by her child
Clare Frear
In October 2008 Frear pleaded guilty to causing unnecessary suffering to the cat, named Cassie. She was initially accused of putting the cat into a microwave oven herself, but later blamed her four-year-old son, Declan Frear.
The cat died in agony six hours later and Frear admitted she hadn’t taken her to the vet for treatment.
RSPCA officers found Cassie’s body in a bin bag outside the house.
Sentencing: three-month curfew; costs of £250. Banned from keeping animals for five years (expired 2013).
CONVICTED (2007) | Nasar Khan, born 13/03/1982, of 12 July Street, Blackburn BB1 1SR – turned a terraced house into a training centre for ‘fighting’ dogs
Khan pleaded guilty to eight charges of owning fighting dogs and one of allowing one of the dogs to be in a public place without a muzzle or lead.
Police found the nine illegal, unlicensed pit bull terriers chained up around a terraced property in July Street, Blackburn, after one escaped and began roaming the street.
The house, which was owned by Khan’s family, had been transformed into a pitbull training centre complete with a treadmill.
Isla Chilton, prosecuting, said: “Inside the house was a violent scene and there was blood splattered everywhere.
“There was no furniture and no lighting. It was just full of caged and chained dogs with a treadmill.
“There was a range of muscle-building tablets and powder found there.
“It is clear that these dogs had been trained to fight, a number of these dogs had relatively fresh scars on them. They are clearly not pets.
“The treadmill had a clip for the dogs’ collars which forced them to run, keeping them as fit as possible for fighting.
“These were not normal pit bulls. They were very aggressive and very dangerous.”
After police discovered the animals, which are banned under the 1991 Dangerous Dogs Act, a dog warden was called and they were taken to a kennel, Ms Chilton said.
The court heard the dogs were so vicious that after they were seized one of them escaped from his cage in the back of the dog warden’s van and mauled another so badly he had to be put down. All nine dogs were later euthanised.
Aftab Bakhat, defending, said his client was not training the dogs for fighting, but was “fascinated” by them and wanted them to grow big and muscular. He added that Khan was an “extremely stupid man” and did not realise that what he was doing was illegal.
District Judge Peter Ward said: “It is clear that these dogs were being trained to bite and the potential danger to the public was significant.”
Judge Ward continued: “He may have been naive but it seems to me that these are dogs that have been prepared for fighting and have been involved in some fighting.”
The cost of kenneling the dogs reached over £15,000. This was met by the taxpayer after unemployed Khan was jailed.
After the case, RSPCA spokesman Sophie Corless said: “Sadly large numbers of pitbull types are still being kept for the wrong reasons – seen as macho status symbols for the purpose of organised dog fighting.
“Either way the dog’s welfare is unnecessarily put at great risk by their owners. It is a brutal crime.”
CONVICTED (2005) | Rosalind Gregson, born c. 1950, originally from Silverdale, Carnforth and as of 2018 living at 1 Laister Court, Bare Lane, Morecambe LA4 6LJ – kept 271 animals in her home in appalling conditions
In an extreme case of animal hoarding Rosalind Gregson, now of Laister Court in Morecambe, kept over 270 animals at her home
Gregson originally faced 69 cruelty charges after RSPCA officers discovered 246 dogs, 16 birds, five cats, two kittens, a rabbit and a chinchilla when they raided her detached cottage in September 2003.
She admitted nine charges of causing unnecessary suffering to two Yorkshire terriers, three Shih Tzus, a Bichon Frise, an Old English sheepdog, and two Lhasa Apsos. Five of them had to be put to sleep to end their suffering.
A district judge at Preston magistrates’ court heard that when the RSPCA team raided Gregson’s £500,000 detached house at Silverdale, near Carnforth, Lancs, they were initially “overwhelmed” by the stench of ammonia and faeces. They found the animals living in virtually unlit, rat-infested rooms with little water and food. Most of the water they did have was contaminated with cat litter.
District judge Peter Ward was shown an RSPCA video which showed officers viewing the “dismal and depressing conditions”. The camera pans from cage to cage, showing dogs barely able to sit up. One RSPCA officer is heard to say: “How can they live in this? This is appalling.”
Some of the dogs are lifted out of their cages and held up in view of the camera. One, a Maltese terrier, is shown with her fur matted with what appears to be excrement. An officer says: “She’s in a terrible state.”
Another, a Shih-tzu, has matted fur and appears emaciated. Its weakness and reluctance to stand is attributed by a vet to the muscle wasting in its hind legs. The animal was later put down.
An emaciated Yorkshire terrier had a discharge coming from both eyes. Few of its teeth remained, its nails were overgrown and it had a severe skin infection. It, too, had to be put down.
Tim Bergin, prosecuting, said: “It is not the prosecution case that she maliciously caused cruelty to the animals in her home; simply that she allowed her obsession to collect animals to overwhelm her.”
Gregson initially denied 49 counts of failing to provide the animals with necessary care and attention but later changed her plea and admitted nine counts of causing them unreasonable suffering.
Gregson’s lawyer told the court her client’s obsessive animal collecting began when her son died from a drug overdose 15 years earlier. She said: “This is wholly about a tragic set of circumstances. It’s about sadness, it’s about isolation, it’s about the loss of a child, it’s about despair, it’s about obsession. The list just goes on and on.”
Asked why there were so many animals in the house, Gregson told police: “Because it got out of hand, its just an obsession, I couldn’t stop.”
RSPCA Inspector Sarah Hayland said the scene she found was beyond belief.
“It’s a normal looking property from the outside — and then to be faced with the room full of dogs.
“And we had no idea how many animals were in there, right until the second day when we’d been in all the rooms.
“It’s just the enormity of it, the amount of animals involved is something that I’ve never come across before and hope never to again”.
Sentencing: Jailed for three months – later altered to a three year Community Rehabilitation Order. Disqualified from keeping animals for life.
