A 21-YEAR-OLD woman who mistreated her pets has been banned from keeping dogs for 10 years.

Cherelle Bromfield, of Claremont Street, Greenwich, was also sentenced by Greenwich magistrates to 150 hours of community service and ordered to pay £500 costs plus £600 vets’ fees.

Bromfield was reported to the police when she was seen hitting one of her Staffordshire bull terrier-cross dogs, Scarlet, in March last year.

Police discovered her other dog Amber, of the same breed, was thin, had sores on her body and some of her hair had fallen out.

Both dogs were treated by a vet, but Amber eventually had to be put to sleep on veterinary advice.

Bromfield had pleaded guilty to one count of causing unnecessary suffering to an animal at an earlier hearing.

She pleaded not guilty to another count but was convicted in her absence last November.