Horse owner charged on 45 counts of cruelty

A race horse owner yesterday admitted animal cruelty charges after one of her horses was found dead, trapped in barbed wire.

Several of Mary O’Leary’s 81 horses were left emaciated, anaemic, massively infested with parasites, with open wounds and grazing in fields strewn with barbed wire, rusty metal and broken bottles in Penycae, Wrexham.

Forty-five horses were rescued by the RSPCA and council last the town’s magistrates’ court heard yesterday.