A couple barred from having any animals because they had been cruel to their dog flouted the order from the day it was made, York magistrates heard.

Paul Andrew Wyrill, 28, and his wife, Michelle, 29, kept two dogs at their home in Poppleton Road, York, from January 26 until dog wardens and the RSPCA learned what they were doing.

Peter Tetlow, prosecuting, said the couple then lied to RSPCA inspector Gill Corder, claiming that they were only housing the two dogs temporarily for a friend.

But the friend, Paul Sellars, told the inspector that he had been with the couple when they bought the dogs in 1998, before they were barred.

Both Wyrills pleaded guilty to breaking an order banning them from having any animals for ten years.

The order was made by York magistrates on January 26 because they starved their dog Pal until he was skin and bone.

Magistrates heard that they could send the couple to jail for three months.

But the couple could not do community service because Paul Wyrill works seven nights a week and his wife must look after their children, aged from two to nine.

Each was fined £125 and together they were ordered to pay £459 costs.

The magistrates warned them that if they breached the order again they would go straight to prison.

For the couple, Trevor Cox said that they had been trying to find a home for the German Shepherd cross and a cross-breed dog shortly after the order was made.

But they had not succeeded in finding a home for them both together before June 16, when Inspector Corder arrived.

They were animal lovers, he said, and had been trying to obey the order.

Michelle Wyrill suffers from depression.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.