'It made my eyes burn.' Dentist avoids jail over "appalling" animal cruelty case

Irish Daily Mirror

29-05-2025

A dentist has been given a suspended prison sentence of four and a half years and a lifetime ban on owning animals after what a judge described as 'one of the most appalling cases of animal neglect' he had ever come across.
Karen Saunderson, 68, who comes originally from Liverpool with an address in England, pleaded guilty to ten offences contrary to the Animal Health and Welfare Act 2013 over the condition in which a large number of animals were discovered at the rental property where she lived at Templelusk, Avoca, Co Wicklow on November 19, 2016.
The charges related to causing unnecessary suffering, feeding, neglect and a failure to safeguard the health and welfare of animals.
Lawyers for Mr Saunderson – who is also known as Sanderson – claimed her property was used 'as a drop-off point for certain unwanted animals'.
A sitting of Wicklow Circuit Criminal Court on Thursday heard an animal welfare inspector and Gardaí who visited the living area of the property complained that their eyes were burning from the smell of ammonia from the urine of the animals.
A total of 43 dogs, five horses, a pig and a wild boar were found on the property when it was visited by the chief inspector of the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Conor Dowling.
The inspector gave evidence that an overweight pig which was found squealing and lying on its side in a filthy stable had to be put down later that day to prevent it from further suffering. Mr Dowling said the animal was unable to get to its feet, had overgrown hooves and no water.
He described a terrible stench from other stables, where he found 12 dogs living in muck and faeces with no water with some of the animals obviously 'stressed'. One Mastiff who had a withered leg had to be euthanised a week later.
Mr Dowling said a German Shepherd, who was discovered to be pregnant, gave birth to a litter of nine pups the following week. Some were deformed and none survived. However, most of the other dogs and all the horses were successfully rehomed.
Mr Dowling told counsel for the DPP, James Kelly BL, that he sought assistance from Gardaí because of the scale of what he encountered.
He outlined how dogs spilled out of the living area of a loft building when the door was opened. The court heard a total of 31 dogs, ranging from small puppies to giant breeds, were found in the loft with dog faeces everywhere.
'It was a stressful and chaotic environment,' said Mr Dowling, who believed that a large pool of liquid on the floor was urine from the dogs.
'I could not breathe and it made my eyes burn,' he recalled.
A video recording of the scene showed the accused tried to claim the dogs had only urinated when inspectors had knocked on the door.
Mr Dowling said the accused claimed she walked 30 dogs every day but he said the evidence indicated otherwise as many of the animals had overgrown claws.
He said one Mastiff had chronic arthritis and could not even make its own way downstairs, while a spaniel could not walk as it had not properly recovered from an old injury. Another dog had to have a toe amputated as it had been gnawing at an exposed bone.
Mr Dowling said he did not believe Ms Saunderson was keeping animals commercially but he found it hard to explain the situation.
The inspector said all the horses were underweight and suffering from rain scald and mud fever.
He told Judge Patrick Quinn that a decision was taken to remove most of the animals, although the accused was allowed to keep some dogs to whom she was particularly attached.
The judge questioned how the situation was allowed to develop that both the defendant and her animals were living in such appalling conditions and squalor without it being reported to the authorities.
'Somebody must have known,' he observed.
Mr Dowling replied that he had visited the property on the basis of a 'quite vague' report that gave no sense of the scale of what he subsequently discovered. He pointed out that a vet who called to the property had never been beyond the yard.
However, he remarked that someone passing on the quiet road beside the property could have seen the horses in the field and realised there might be an animal welfare issue.
Mr Dowling said the costs in the case were calculated at €12,229 but he believed the true figure was a multiple of that figure.
Under cross-examination by defence counsel, Eanna Mulloy SC, the inspector said he was unaware about Ms Saunderson's claim that she was not the owner of all the animals or that she had issues with her landlord about sewage problems on the property.
Mr Dowling said he was also unfamiliar that she was meant to be minding animals for a member of the Traveller community.
The court heard Ms Saunderson had moved to Ireland in financially-strained circumstances for a number of years on a 'career break' while she was the subject of a long-running regulatory matter with the General Dental Council in the UK.
Mr Kelly noted that her guilty pleas were only entered in January 2025 to offences committed over eight years ago after she had submitted reports over the intervening years that she was unfit to go on trial.
Mr Mulloy said Ms Saunderson had a difficult family background and was someone who was 'easily exploited'.
He said the kernel of the problem was that his client was a woman who had a soft spot for animals who could not cope with the number she had accumulated but there was a low risk of her re-offending.
Sentencing Ms Saunderson to four and a half years in prison and ordering her to pay costs of €15,000, Judge Quinn said it was obvious both she and her animals were neglected and living in 'absolute squalor'.
The judge observed he had come across a few other similar cases where someone with a love of animals became overwhelmed by the number of animals they acquired over time. He claimed it was irrelevant that she might have been exploited by others.
The judge accepted her neglect was not intentional but due to her own declining mental state.
Ms Saunderson sobbed audibly as she heard the sentence would be fully suspended. Addressing the judge, she remarked: 'Thank you very much. I really am so very sorry.'