A woman has been jailed after two of her pet cats starved to death and a third was forced to eat their remains.
Housing officers found one feline in critical condition and another two dead when they visited Elizabeth Mary O’Sullivan’s Birmingham flat in May, according to the RSCPA.
Inspector Jonathan Radcliffe and took the living cat to a vet, who put it down.
The owner had left her flat in Moseley two or three months beforehand, Birmingham Magistrates’ Court was told.
O’Sullivan was found guilty in her absence of one animal welfare offence.
Mr Radcliffe said: “It appears this cat had survived for weeks without food and water by eating the remains of the other two pets as they had died from starvation and dehydration.”
He said the flat contained no food or water.
“The toilet seat had been left up so the cats may have been able to drink from this,” he said. “However, as they became weaker, they would have been unable to access this water.
“It is incomprehensible to think the suffering these pets must have endured and how terrified they must have been.”
O’Sullivan has been given 20 weeks in jail and a lifetime ban on keeping all animals, the RSPCA said.
Additional reporting by agencies
