A French couple has been given a one-year suspended prison sentence for keeping 159 cats and seven dogs in cruel conditions in their 80sqm flat in Nice. The animals were discovered living in filth, many dehydrated, malnourished, or infected with parasites.
The judge ruled that the couple failed to provide appropriate care. The 68-year-old woman and 52-year-old man were permanently banned from keeping pets and ordered to pay over €150,000 (£128,000) to animal rights charities and civil parties.
Police intervened in a dispute at the flat last year and found animal excrement everywhere. Some cats and dogs later died due to poor health; investigators found the bodies of at least two cats and two dogs in a bathroom.
The flat owner told the court the animals were 'the love of her life' but that she had 'screwed up'. She had taken her parents' three cats and three dogs in 2018, then brought around 30 cats from an abandoned building, which subsequently reproduced. She said she would have felt 'abandoned for leaving [the animals] abandoned'.
A psychiatric assessment diagnosed her with 'Noah's syndrome' – a psychological need to save animals even when unable to do so properly. The couple had been investigated in 2014 for living in an 18sqm studio with 13 cats and a dog.
