A COUPLE from Bury have been banned from keeping animals for two years after being found guilty of starving their dog to death.

They were also fined £300 each.

Anthony and Victoria Simmonds appeared before Bury magistrates after neighbours called the RSPCA to report the death of their dog Trudi.

The court heard that RSPCA Inspector Martyn Fletcher went to the Cotton Tree Pub, in Moorgate, Bury, of which the couple were landlords at the time. He was shown the grave of the Staffordshire Bull Terrier in the garden and gained a court order to exhume the body. A post mortem examination by a vet found that the dog was "highly emaciated", with no body fat and with wasting of the muscles.

On a sliding scale of nought to five, with five being a healthy dog, the vet rated the dog at 0.5. The vet estimated the dog had not been fed for at least five days.

When Inspector Fletcher interviewed the couple, they said the dog was a family pet and that it was fed every day. But neighbours said that the dog was kept in a yard in a shed with no door. On the night the dog died, it had been snowing and snow was found in the shed.

The couple, who no longer live in the area, were ordered to pay court costs of £1,100.

Inspector Fletcher said afterwards that the RSPCA saw a lot of this sort of behaviour towards pets. "The RSPCA will do all it can to prosecute offenders," he said.