CONVICTED (2009) | Dawn Elizabeth Rose, born 25/01/1960, previously of Llangolen, North Wales, and more recently Duncan Street, Brinsworth, Rotherham S60 5DE – allowed 72 horses on her failing stud farm to starve
Divorcee Dawn Rose set up a stud farm using a £300,000 pay-out from her ex-partner to fulfil her teenage daughter’s dream of breeding ponies.
But the business was a failure, and when inspectors raided it they found desperately emaciated animals foraging for scraps of food.
Rose pleaded guilty to six charges of causing unnecessary suffering to animals.
The mother-of-two wept as RSPCA prosecutor Glen Murphy said the experienced inspection team had been “stunned” by the appalling condition of the animals on her stud farm.
RSPCA inspector Chris Dunbar first visited Rose in March 2008 when she bought her 42-acre farm to start a stud.
Inspector Dunbar said: “We had concerns from the start as she wasn’t feeding the horses. We kept going back — she listened but did nothing.”
One horse, a chestnut mare called Mist, was little more than a ‘skeleton with skin stretched over’, and the vet who treated her was amazed she could still stand up.
Three others were so weak that they died soon afterwards.
Rose, who had moved to the area from Norfolk, told investigators her money had run out and she could not afford to pay for the animals.
Sitting at Mold magistrates court, district judge Andrew Shaw told Ms Rose: “You neglected these horses in an obvious and shameful way.”
Mr Dunbar added: “We were happy with the ban. Our job is to stop cruelty and in this case that’s what we feel we’ve done.”
Sentencing: three-month sentence suspended for 12 months; 100 hours of unpaid community work. Banned from keeping or being involved with horses for 10 years (expired 2019).
As a bankrupt, Rose was only ordered to pay £250 of the RSPCA’s prosecution costs of £128,554.
Heart Breaking