A HORSE lover found guilty of animal cruelty has been ordered to complete community service.

Philip Davies, 65, of Plantation Road, Edgworth, was convicted of keeping animals in ‘hazardous conditions’.

A total of 17 horses he kept in Edgworth as a hobby had lice, mites, worm infestations, foot rot, and liver damage caused by eating poisonous ragwort weeds.

Blackburn magistrates yesterday sentenced him to 300 hours of community service, a curfew between 8pm and 7am, and banned him from owning, or working, with horses.

The court also ruled he was liaible for costs of £85,000 to the RSPCA, although the only assets the pensioner holds are his house and land.

Defending, Louise Cowen said he had had a dream of opening up an educational facility on the site, showing how shire horses had historically worked the land.

She said: “He completely accepts the environment he kept the horses in was inadequate. He keeps horses for pleasure, not profit, and a ban is a punishment to him. A custodial sentence would be devastating to a man of his years.”

District judge Peter Ward found that the neglect was ‘medium term neglect’, and that a non-custodial sentence was appropriate.

He said: “The environment the horses were kept in was hazardous, with junk lying around where they were kept.”