Bude hotelier banned from keeping horses after RSPCA rescue starving ponies.

A Bude hotelier whose five ponies were found starving in a waterlogged paddock has been banned from keeping equines for ten years.  Lisa Doolan kept the ponies called Bambi, Joker, Harley, Maisie and Dexter, in appalling conditions at a muddy field in Marine Drive, Widemouth Bay, Cornwall. 

Truro Crown Court heard any hay that was there was not edible and four of the ponies would have died had they not been removed by the RSPCA. 

 The animals were starving and living in a cold and wet environment. Doolan, who runs a hotel in Bude with her husband, owned nine ponies in all. 

 Judge Simon Carr said owning an animal is a ‘colossal responsibility’ and the burden of care and feeding the animals falls on the owner.  He said it was obvious the ponies were ‘suffering terribly and the conditions were appalling’ following months of neglect. 

 Mother of four, Doolan, aged 47, of Bude, Cornwall, admitted four charges of animal cruelty or neglect and was jailed for four months, suspended for two years, on each of the four charges concurrently. 

 She was banned from keeping equines for a decade and ordered to pay £9,193 prosecution costs.

 Miss Feleena Grosvenor, defending, said Doolan was suffering from stress at the time did not realise how poorly the ponies were faring. She is truly remorseful.