A MAN and a woman have pleaded not guilty to eight animal cruelty charges.
Peter Rushworth Higgins, aged 53, and Ann Warren, aged 38, denied the charges – which relate to them allegedly causing unnecessary suffering to 16 dogs – at Wigan Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday.
One of the charges the pair have denied is causing unnecessary suffering to two cross breed tan terriers by failing to care, supervise and protect them which resulted in fighting and the death of one of the dogs at their Chester Road home in Tyldesley on June 26.
They also allegedly failed to meet the needs of the dogs by subjecting them to an exceptionally deprived social and physical upbringing, resulting in them being unable to exhibit normal behaviour in the year before the RSPCA intervened.
The defendants were granted unconditional bail and a two-day trial is set for February 20 at Wigan Magistrates’ Court.
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