Why were cats and dogs abandoned in a house in Roubaix, in the North? The police are in charge of the investigation. It all starts in November 2021, when the employees of a company responsible for clearing a vacant dwelling come face to face with a vision of horror: eight cats and a dog, in mummy condition, lying on the floor of the dwelling. The smell is pestilential, according to the complaint filed a few months later, in March 2022, by a Lille lawyer.
For Me Graziella Dode, this is a serious case of animal abuse. “We found claw marks on the walls and doors, showing that the cats had tried, in vain, to get out, she tells 20 minutes. The animals were left locked in the house without food, water, care or the possibility of getting out, for such a long time that they died. »
A room closed from the outside
Additional detail, “a room was closed from the outside with a string positioned in such a way that opening the door by jumping on the handle was impossible”, says the lawyer who tried to trace the context of this macabre discovery. .
“A man and a woman occupied the accommodation, but a court order, issued in 2019, forced them to leave the premises because of unpaid rent,” she said. After they left, the owner had to call in a bailiff to open the door of the house and a company to empty the rooms. »
It was then that all these little people were confronted with the terrible reality. Alerted by the manager of the clearance company, the association “Justice for animals” decided to file a complaint with the Lille prosecutor. “The death of these animals deeply shocked the people who intervened that day”, underlines Me Dode who considers that “the abandonment of these domestic animals is likened to an act of cruelty”.
Know the motivations
In fact, the public prosecutor decided to open a preliminary investigation to shed light on this case. Contacted on the progress of the investigations, he remained silent. Why were the doors deliberately blocked to prevent cats and dogs from getting out? Did the tenants plan to return? “We are counting on this investigation to find the people who abandoned these animals to their fate and to know their motivations”, notes the lawyer.
The latter, very involved in cases of animal abuse, recognizes that for a year, “the ten complaints filed in the metropolis of Lille have given rise to the opening of an investigation”. And to be reassured: “We feel that, now, in Lille, there is a real concern for justice concerning these files which involve animals”.