STANSTED PONY NEGLECT WOMAN JAILED
A Stansted woman was given a two month prison sentence and banned from keeping horses after Chelmsford magistrates heard that three of her starving ponies had to be humanely destroyed.The court heard last Thursday that police officers and representatives of the British Horse Society who went to Lime Kiln Stables and Stud, Stansted, were horrified to discover a Shetland stallion in such an appaling condition it was immediately put down.
A chestnut Shetland mare called Peanut that had an internal tumour and skeletal body was later destroyed, as was a grey whose tumour of the eye had not been medically treated.
A further four ponies had not had their hooves trimmed for at least a year were described by an experienced farrier as the worst case he had ever seen.
Chairman of the bench Derek Brades told Jane Graham that he and his colleagues considered the seven charges of wantonly causing unnecessary neglect so serious that the only suitable punishment was prison.
Graham, 46, who kept the horses at Stansted stables, appeared before the court for sentencing last Thursday having denied ill treating seven horses and ponies at a previous hearing.
She was jailed for two months on each of three charges relating to the ponies that had to be destroyed and for one month on each of the remaining four charges, to run concurrently, but would only serve half her sentence behind bars while the remaining period would be suspended.
Graham was banned from owning horses and ponies, but not donkeys, for 10 years to come into effect in two months allowing her time to re-home her remaining 23 animals.
No order was made towards legal, re-stabling or veterinary bills which together added up to just over £3,000.
Jane Graham - jailed for two months.
