Nicola Stirk, of Hutton Henry, was disqualified from keeping cats and dogs for two years after admitting in the Nicola Stirk RSPCA prosecution Hutton Henry that four animals were left in squalor at a County Durham house. Teesside Magistrates Court also gave her a 15-month community order on October 20.
The case involved a Doberman, a Borzoi and two cats. Stirk admitted she failed to meet their needs and did not provide a suitable environment, leaving the court to deal with a property where welfare concerns had escalated after earlier intervention.
Teesside Magistrates Court sentencing
RSPCA Inspector Rowena Proctor visited the property on February 3 after concerns were raised with the charity. Her written statement described a passageway littered with faeces and rubbish, a sofa chewed beyond use, and floors covered in rubbish, faeces and urine except for one small area in the living room.
Proctor also told the court the bath appeared to have not been used for quite some time and was black and brown with dirt. She said the toilet, she suspected, did not flush, and added: “The smell was dreadful.”
A vet agreed the animals were suffering or likely to suffer if their circumstances did not change. Stirk signed them over into the care of the RSPCA, which removed the immediate responsibility for their welfare from the home and placed it with the charity.
Hutton Henry property conditions
The court was told Stirk had previously been warned by the RSPCA when conditions first began to deteriorate. A follow-up visit showed improvement, but concerns later returned, and Stirk told officers she was hiring cleaners to assist her with the property.
That sequence mattered because it showed the case was not just about one bad visit. It moved from warning, to temporary improvement, and then back to deterioration, before the animals were taken into care and the court imposed the two-year ban.
RSPCA care for Charlie and Maddy
After the sentencing, Charlie and Maddy were rehomed by the RSPCA’s Coventry & District Branch. Mabel the Doberman and Anya the Borzoi were looked after at the RSPCA’s Felledge Animal Centre near Chester-le-Street.
Luka Atkinson, deputy centre manager, said: “Apart from needing a little bit of basic training Mabel was a very easy-going dog. We rehomed her quickly and she quickly settled with her lovely new family.” He said of Anya: “Anya was much more challenging and required lots of rehabilitation as she struggled with everyday life. She was very shut down when she arrived with us and had clearly struggled with the environment she’d been living in.”
The sentence means Stirk cannot keep cats or dogs for two years, and it leaves the animals’ recovery as the clearest measure of what changed after the court case: two have already been rehomed, while Anya needed extensive rehabilitation after removal from the house.
