A COUPLE were found guilty of neglecting their cat which had more than 100 maggots living in a four-inch neck infection.

Michael Thomas, aged 48, and Christine Baxter, aged 54, of Laburnum Way, Bromley, were each fined £400 plus court costs and given a 12-month conditional discharge for causing unnecessary suffering to an animal.

Miserable moggy, Noddy was picked up by RSPCA inspector Nigel Peake after the couple phoned the charity claiming the cat was stray.

The RSPCA appealed in News Shopper for the cat's owner but neighbours told them it belonged to Thomas and Baxter.

Mr Peake said: "An infection had been left to burst which left it open for flies to lay their eggs in it. It could have been treated before."

The cat was picked up on June 1 last year and charges were brought by the RSPCA. The couple, who have since split up, were tried at Bromley Magistrates' Court on March 31.

April 29, 2003 12:30