Woman starved dog in bedroom

A WOMAN locked a dog in a bedroom until it died of starvation because she was ‘too knackered’ to care for it.

Ruth Carlisle, 27, admitted failing to care for her friend's Labrador, which she had offered to look after. Carlisle, from Cambridge, locked the dog in a bedroom for three weeks and left it food and water once a week, Ely magistrates heard.

RSPCA officer Mark Niepold found the dog’s corpse swarming with fleas in what he called ‘the worst infestation he had seen in 15 years in the job’, the court heard. Magistrates were shown photographs of its emaciated body and her claw marks at the bedroom door where the dog had tried vainly to escape.

Audrey Clark, 56, also from Cambridge, had entrusted Snuggles to Carlisle's care after the dog's brother and sister were taken away by concerned family members. Carlisle told the court: ‘I just couldn't hack it. I didn't have the time. I had to go to YMCA for a training course and had to get up early and sometimes I was knackered when I came back. I was worried when she stopped barking, but I did not want to get in there and find something.’

The RSPCA also brought charges against Clark, despite her denying any knowledge of the cruelty, because she had failed to check on her dog.