The black and tan dog has now put on half its body weight

Newlyweds Jeanette and Lee Ripley have been banned from keeping animals for life and ordered to pay fines and costs totalling £4,000 after they abandoned their pets for a week to go on honeymoon.

Seventeen animals were found surrounded by excrement and urine at their house in Rowntree Avenue, Clifton.

Jeanette, 44, and Lee, 32, pleaded guilty at Selby Magistrates Court to ten charges of not taking proper care of their pets under the 1911 Protection of Animals Act.

Peter Tetlow, prosecuting for the RSPCA, told the court that the couple got married a week before and had gone to a caravan park on the East Coast for a week's holiday when their animals were discovered by RSPCA officers.

Mr Tetlow said the animals were found without food or water.

"In respect of some of the animals there was clear neglect prior to their week alone," he said.

The couple both pleaded guilty to causing unnecessary suffering to a black and tan crossbred dog, a ferret and a small ferret, a bearded dragon lizard, five tarantula-type spiders, four chinchillas and four cats.

Mr Tetlow told the court that a "dead rat" was found in a tank in the kitchen.

Officers also found four chinchillas in a large glass case with "excrement and dust for a bed".

Craig Sutcliffe, mitigating, told the court there was an unfortunate set of circumstances which led to the animals suffering. He blamed any suffering the animals may have endured on lack of knowledge and finance.

He said: "A combination of the wedding and friends leaving belongings at their house led to an acute period in the organisation of their family life.

"The animals did not receive priority."

Anne Robinson, presiding, told the couple: "There are many people who would say you ought to go to prison for these offences and perhaps you ought to."

Magistrates fined the Ripleys £50 each on each of the ten offences.

They also ordered each of them to pay just over £1,500 in RSPCA and court costs.

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