A WOMAN convicted of "appalling" animal cruelty has been spared jail but banned from keeping pets for life.

Susan Tytheridge, 47, of Connaught Road, Chatham, appeared in court on Thursday to be sentenced for 10 counts of causing unnecessary suffering to animals.

The magistrates said they were left with no choice but to give a custodial sentence.

However, chair of the bench Reginald Hughes told Tytheridge that her sentence of 180 days behind bars would be suspended for two years because she is a lone parent and the mother of a 15-year-old boy.

Tytheridge was also disqualified from keeping animals for the rest of her life, will have to carry out 300 hours of unpaid work in the community and pay £500 costs at the rate of £10 a week.

Tytheridge stood in a secure dock at Medway Magistrates' Court as she was sentenced.

During her trial RSPCA officers described how on August 3, 2006, they discovered 31 dead rabbits, guinea pigs and hamsters in a garden shed at the defendant’s former home in Adelaide Road, Gillingham.

A further 29 rabbits were taken from her sisters home on August 7, 2006.

Tytheridge had pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Mr Hughes told Tytheridge: “It’s clear that you are not accepting any responsibility for what you’ve done, you didn’t express any remorse or regret about the appalling suffering the animals endured.

“While these animals were on your premises you had a duty of care but you failed to execute that care so that many of those creatures in fact died.”