A WOMAN has been given a community sentence and an electronic tag after she admitted animal welfare crimes at her smallholding.

Toni Veitch, 42, of Brigg Lane, Camblesforth, admitted neglecting a pig and a goat and was sentenced at York Magistrate’s Court.

Veitch pleaded guilty to two charges – one of failing to get vet treatment for a pig with a skin condition, and another of failing to provide a proper diet for a billy goat.

The magisrates heard RSPCA inspectors’ accounts of finding the animals in two stables at Veitch’s smallholding between January and April last year. They found the pig with obviously inflammed and irritated skin, and the emaciated goat in an enclosed stable with no access to food.

RSPCA solicitor Phil Browne said that at the time Veitch was already the subject of ongoing cases about the neglect of horses she owned.

In defence, Veitch’s solicitor Keith Heggarty said this was not a case of deliberate neglect. His client had realised she could not care for the animals properly and had in fact asked for RSPCA assistance in rehoming the animals. But she had been told the charity could not help, only weeks before the inspectors visited her property and became concerned about the livestock.

Mr Haggerty said: “She’s a lady who has for many years looked after animals mainly successfully, but in recent years has come across problems. This is a sad state of affairs from her point of view.”

Magistrate Judith Luscombe and two colleagues gave Veitch a community order with an eight-week electronic curfew to run concurrently with a curfew already imposed in the horse welfare cases last year. They also disqualified her from keeping livestock for life, with a condition that Veitch cannot apply for the disqualification to be lifted for seven years.