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The Journal A vet told a court yesterday how an iguana sold by a Tyneside pet shop was so emaciated it hung in her hand like "a limp rag". Katherine Heathcote, a veterinary surgeon and volunteer at the Reptile Trust charity, told magistrates how a venomous false water cobra, also from the Benton Pet Centre, Longbenton, Newcastle, had become "triangular" in shape due to it being so underweight. Gary Noble, 50, and his wife Joan, 45, of Rectory Terrace, Hexham, deny causing unnecessary suffering to the lizard and snake and also selling an unfit animal. The RSPCA and police raided the store last August after a complaint from customer Richard Moore about the condition of the green iguana he had purchased at the store for his wife's birthday. Mrs Heathcote said: "An iguana is usually an active and alert animal and you would expect it to move its legs around when lifted out of its box, but this one just hung like a limp rag. I examined the animal thoroughly and also observed that it had a broken left femur." She said she believed the animal would have died within 24 hours of respiratory failure due to low levels of calcium after a prolonged period of neglect. Mrs Heathcote explained how the false water cobra, a usually aggressive snake which carries a toxic venom, had not only become emaciated, it had also developed a mouth infection. "The individual snake in question was so under weight it was triangular rather than circular in cross section," she added. "I could feel the spine and that was totally unacceptable." Mr Moore told North Tyneside Magistrates' Court a member of staff at Benton Pet Centre had told him that iguanas would eat anything and the one he was buying, named Archie, had been known to eat chicken fried rice - a diet deemed unsuitable by Mrs Heathcote. In interviews read out in court by RSPCA Inspector Iain Kane and prosecutor Clive McKeag, Noble denied causing any unnecessary suffering to the animals, adding that he had run the shop for 10 years without any complaints. He said he had been given Archie by "a lad" who came into his store and said he could no longer look after it. He said the animal was extremely ill and he nursed it back to health without the aid of veterinary care. Mr McKeag said: "They are a different species than the animals that usually come before court, nevertheless they are to be treated exactly the same way as other animals. They have the same rights to protection as any other." Both animals are in the custody of the RSPCA. The case continues on Wednesday. |