A VICAR and his wife said to have been responsible for the neglect of a colony of 76 stray and unwanted cats were yesterday disqualified by Berwick magistrates from keeping cats and dogs for five years.
Following a tip off, RSPCA officers were summoned to the home of the Rev Victor Dickinson, 50, and his wife Judith, 40, at The Vicarage, Lowick, and all 76 animals had to be put down by vets.
The couple, who admitted a contravention of the 1911 Protection of Animals Act, were also ordered to pay #250 costs each to the RSPCA.
A plea by the couple and their seven sons to be allowed to keep the 12 cats and two stray dogs which they still look after at their home was rejected by magistrates, who ordered the animals rehoused within one month.
Mr Clive McKeag, prosecuting for the RSPCA, said the vets involved had described it as distressing.
In a prepared statement read to the court, Mr Dickinson said: ''Our only desire was to be kind, but it failed.''
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