Cat left with broken leg for three months

A cat had to have its front leg amputated after being left with a broken bone for more than three months by its Black Country owners.

Ben Steadman and Julie Lewis were given three month suspended jail terms by Walsall Magistrates for allowing their pet Scooby to suffer unnecessarily.

The pair, who also allowed the cat’s nails to overgrow into the pad of the paw, were also given a ban.

They are not allowed to keep any pets for 10 years they were told yesterday.

Mr James Cooper, prosecuting, said that the male black and white cat was believed to have been in a road traffic accident and was taken for treatment at a veterinary surgery in Sutton Coldfield last July.

However, a pin put in the three-year-old pet became loose. Steadman and Lewis, who were living in Walsall Wood Road, Aldridge, at the time, were unable to afford further treatment despite efforts to contact surgeries and turned down an offer of RSPCA help, it emerged.They then allowed the cat to suffer with a fractured right leg between September and December before an RSPCA officer visited their home and saw the cat with the discoloured leg and overgrown nails. The pet was unable to put weight on its leg, the court heard.

It was seized from the pair who said it had been taken in as a stray and had its limb amputated at Manor Veterinary Centre in Halesowen.

Mr Nigel Ford, defending both Steadman and Lewis, said that they accepted failing to follow up medical treatment but that they were struggling financially.

He said efforts had been made to seek care and they were not deliberately trying to make the pet suffer.

Steadman, 31, currently serving a jail sentence for an unrelated breach matter, and Lewis, 41, both of Hay Grove, Brownhills, pleaded guilty to charges of causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal.

Magistrates sentenced them to three months imprisonment, suspended by 12 months, and banned from keeping any animals for 10 years. Lewis was also ordered to pay £200 costs.

Presiding magistrate Tina Heafield said that it was obvious that the cat was seriously injured and in pain.