Starving dog left to die as owner watched TV

A dog owner whose starving pet died while she watched television was today behind bars.

Patrice Raymond, of Wednesbury, has also been banned from keeping animals for 10 years after a court heard how her German Shepherd-type pet died while she watched TV in her bedroom.

The 29-year-old hung her head and cried as she was jailed for 24 weeks at Walsall Magistrates Court yesterday.

Mrs Gaynor Sutton, prosecuting, said RSPCA animal welfare officer Boris Lasserre was called to Raymond's home in Barlow Road in December 2010 after a tip off.

She led him to the side of the property where the tan-coloured dog, called Bronte, was wrapped in a sheet inside a cardboard box.

Mrs Sutton said the dog was "grossly emaciated" and "flea infested" and had not been given an adequate diet for at least one month prior to its death.

The court was told the dog had been put outside after it had bitten her son, but Raymond told an RSPCA inspector that she brought him inside when the "bad snow" started.

Mrs Sutton told the court that Raymond admitted that Bronte had been in her bedroom wrapped in a blanket while she watched television, but that she fell asleep and found him dead when she awoke. The court heard Raymond was visited by RSPCA officers on previous occasions and told to take the animal to a vet.

Raymond was charged with failing to protect the dog from pain or suffering on November 30, 2010, and failing to provide it with an appropriate diet and investigate its poor bodily condition between November 5 and December 5, 2010.

The case was proved in her absence at a previous hearing.

Mr James Wilson, mitigating, said Raymond showed remorse and failed to attend the last hearing because she was staying with family in London and did not know about it.

He said she had also been under strain from emotional and financial difficulties.

Mr Wilson told the court she had been feeding the animal, adding: "Either he wasn't eating it or he wasn't getting any nourishment from it."