A STUDENT nurse abandoned five cats - one of them pregnant - without food or water for days on end, a court heard.

Pennine magistrates were told how Georgina Katy Thomson, 28, left the animals while she went to stay in Oxfordshire, didn’t get anyone to look after them and still didn’t arrange for them to be cared for, even after she was traced by an RSPCA inspector.

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Four newborn kittens were later found under a bush in the front garden of the property in Haslingden.

Thomson, who may have put her future in nursing in jeopardy by her actions, admitted an animal to ensure welfare offence between July 28 and August 1.

The defendant, of Queensway, Newchurch, who sobbed during the proceedings, was fined £130 by the magistrates, who said she had caused the cats distress.

Thomson, an undergraduate at Salford University, currently working temporarily at Express Gifts in Clayton-le-Moors, must also pay £100 costs and a £20 victim surcharge and was disqualified from owning or keeping any animal for 12 months.

RSPCA prosecutor Christopher Wyatt told the court that on July 23 an inspector went to the property on Cedar Avenue after concerns from members of the public about animals being abandoned.

She couldn’t see cats, put markers and seals on the front and side doors to see if anyone visited the property and left notes to say she had called, requesting contact.

Another inspector went back the day after, the seals were still intact and no cats could be seen. On July 28, she returned and found someone had been at the house either that day or the day before.

Mr Wyatt said the house looked empty and four cats were outside. One of them appeared to be pregnant. She fed then and put more seals on the doors.

The inspector went back the next day to find the seals still intact, put food down again and the animals came and ate it. The inspector then went to Queensway to try and trace the owner. She wasn’t there and her brother answered and told the officer Thomson had gone down south, but he didn’t know how long for.

Thomson said she had tried to rehome the animals with a cat charity and the RSPCA.

She had no friends to look after them and didn’t get on with her neighbours.

She said she couldn’t afford the cats anymore.

Philip Turner, for Thomson, said in April, she had gone to nurse her terminally ill grandmother through her final weeks and left her partner with their five cats.

She returned to find he was leaving her.

Mr Turner told the court:” This wasn’t done with any intent at all.

“It’s not a case of her systematically abandoning the cats over a period of time.

“Up until then, she had looked after her cats responsibly.”