FOUR ponies at a yard in Sidcup died after being found starving and “riddled with lice and worms”.

The post mortem examination on one pony, which was put down after it collapsed emaciated, revealed it had nothing but sand in its intestine.

Sue Williams, of Old Maidstone Road in Sidcup, was banned from keeping horses for five years and was handed a curfew for three months by Bromley Magistrates’ Court on January 23.

She was found guilty of eight charges of causing unnecessary suffering to her horses and another two of failing in her duty as the person responsible for the welfare of animals.

The 41-year-old failed to provide an adequate diet or treatment for emaciation, diarrhoea, hypothermia and oedema.

A pair of RSPCA officers and field officer Claire Gordon, of charity World Horse Welfare went to the yard in North Cray Road after receiving an emergency call on December 3, 2010.

They found Williams and two vets attending to a collapsed Shetland pony called Ugly Betty, which needed to be put down.

Another five ponies were taken away, all emaciated and covered in lice.

A brown filly called Annie and Scary Mary, a Shetland, were put down while the other three – skewbald youngster Rocky, piebald colt Oliver and Shetland foal Teeny Tiny Tony – were taken to World Horse Welfare’s rescue centre in Norfolk.

Ms Gordon said: “The conditions of the livery yard were the worst I have ever seen. “The stables were filthy and saturated with urine and had clearly not been mucked out for several weeks.

“The ponies were found without food or water and many were emaciated or in poor bodily condition.

“They all had huge parasite burdens being riddled with lice and worms.

“A subsequent post mortem examination of Ugly Betty found only sand in her intestine.

“There was only one bale of hay, which had been left outside uncovered under the snow, which was insufficient for a yard which had 30 horses and ponies stabled there.

"It was clear no one had attended to the horses for several days as there was no evidence of footprints or any disturbance in the snow, which was about a foot and a half deep at the time.”