The Nice criminal court must announce its decision on Wednesday. A couple who lived with 159 cats and seven dogs in an 80 m2 apartment in Nice will be decided on their possible conviction. Two weeks ago, the prosecution requested an 18-month suspended prison sentence against them. It must be said that this man and this woman, tried for abandoning a domestic animal, held them in particularly abominable conditions.
Intervening in a neighborhood dispute a year ago, the police found themselves faced with a sad spectacle when they pushed open the door of the accommodation. They discovered dozens of dehydrated, malnourished animals in each room, covered in parasites and lesions caused by dirt. Not to mention the floor and furniture, covered in urine, feces and trash. The bodies of at least two cats and two puppies, some in an advanced state of decomposition, were also lying in the bathroom. Despite subsequent care, six cats did not survive.
The owner with Noah’s syndrome
“They were the loves of my life but I slipped,” explained their owner, aged 68, repeating that the state of disrepair of the apartment and the animals was only occasional. She assured that she was looking for solutions but that she found herself helpless because of an infection which struck the cats and the heatwave which had made her ill. A psychiatric assessment noted in her a Noah syndromea need to save animals which turns into a denial of one’s own limits.
Her partner, aged 52, handled the contracts for their cleaning company alone and the couple was subject to eviction proceedings with a rental debt of 8,000 euros. In 2014, he had already been the subject of an investigation closed without further action because he lived with 13 cats and a dog in an 18 m2 studio.
But the woman collected her parents’ three cats and three dogs in 2018, then she took in around thirty felines at home that she was feeding in an abandoned building, believing that they were at risk of being poisoned. The animals then reproduced.
More than twenty animal rights associations
The defense pleaded for acquittal, citing the costs incurred by the couple to feed and care for the cats: “At no time have we proven lasting and definitive disinterest,” argued Mr. François Santoni.
More than twenty animal rights associations have claimed more than 200,000 euros in damages for moral damage and especially the costs incurred to care for and maintain the recovered animals. Like the prosecution, they also requested a definitive ban on keeping animals or carrying out an activity related to them.