CONVICTED (2015) | former reptile breeders Tom Wyvern, born 18/11/ 1982, and Catherine Wyvern (now Catherine Anscomb or Catherine Carruthers born c. 1976, and living in Hatfield, Hertfordshire), both previously of Melford Road, Stowmarket – abandoned 18 geckos to starve to death
Tom Wyvern and Catherine Anscomb bred geckos for sale under the name of Wyverns Dragons. On their business’s Facebook page they claimed that “our first thought is always for the quality care of each individual animal.”
Sadly they failed to live up to this claim and simply abandoned 18 geckos to starve to death.
RSPCA Inspector Chris Nice described how the geckos had been left in an empty house to die adding that “no provision was made to feed or water them or care for them in any way – so they were just left on their own to suffer a slow lingering death.”
On June 23, 2015, Inspector Nice went to the former home of the Wyverns in Fairfield Hill, Stowmarket, where he was let in by a council housing officer.
Inspector Nice had described an awful smell of decay, with rotting food, rubbish bags and soiled nappies inside the property.
Seventeen of the 18 geckos had died and were in various states of decay and the containers in which they were kept were full of flies.
The lizard which survived was said to have been dehydrated and its body weight was about a third of what it should have been. It has since recovered and been re-homed.
The Wyverns each pleaded guilty before Ipswich magistrates to two charges of failing in their responsibility to ensure the welfare of an animal and two charges of causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal.
Catherine Wyvern told the RSPCA she had not handled the geckos after becoming pregnant and described herself as being devastated about what happened to her pets.
Sentence: Tom Wyvern – 12-month community order with a 60-hour unpaid work requirement; £710 in court costs; Catherine Wyvern: 12-month conditional discharge. Both were banned from keeping reptiles for five years (expired November 2020).