A disgraced police officer and her boyfriend have been jailed for selling sick and dying kittens in a twisted £280,000 scam.
Former British Transport Police officer Amy Byrne, 30, and her partner Harry Angell, 31, bought and bred kittens to sell from just £50 to in excess of £1,500.
But when customers received their new pets many found they were malnourished, ill and covered in their own urine or faeces.
The couple used at least 33 different fake names in their adverts.
These aliases included the genuine charity Cat Cuddles Rehoming and the ID of someone who had bought a cat off them.
Byrne, lied to buyers that she was a vet and that the kittens had been wormed and microchipped. The health certificates she provided also turned out to be fake.
One victim said she arranged to buy a male kitten off the pair as a surprise for her autistic son who had recently lost his cat.
Her son made a thank you card for Byrne which she accepted as she dropped off the kitten.
After Byrne left the mum realised the kitten was female, thin and had diarrhoea stuck in her fur. The kitten died a short time later.
At Woolwich Crown Court on May 5, the couple pleaded guilty to charges of fraud and breaches of the Animal Welfare Act.
Angell was jailed for three years and four months, while Byrne was jailed for three years and eight months.
The couple were also disqualified from owning pets with no appeal for 10 years.
RSPCA prosecutor Hazel Stevens gave six examples where kittens died soon after being purchased.
She said: “There were human and animal victims in this. Humans were at risk of getting these illnesses from the cat.
“Children who were excited about a new member of the family including one child who made a card to thank Amy Byrne, only to see them die days later.”
Another victim of their scam said: “Having recently lost a cat to the road, we were so looking forward to giving a home to a new kitten. We instantly fell in love with Elsa who was so sleepy and cuddly when we got her.
“For the two precious weeks we had her in our lives she became part of our family.“We were just devastated to watch her slowly go downhill, monitoring her eating so little, trying to rid her of the worms she arrived with and taking her to the vet for numerous checks and tests.
“She spent her last two days in the animal hospital with them trying everything to make her better but she gave up the fight and we began our grieving for little Elsa.”
When the owners got back in contact with Byrne and Angell after the sale they were often ignored.
On one occasion a distraught buyer and her boyfriend turned up at their house to ask for their money back.
Byrne told them to wait outside until Angell arrived.
When he got there Angell shouted: “You bought the kitten from me not Amy, but I am not giving you a f**ing penny.”
With the volume of complaints that the Trading Standards, the RSPCA and the police were receiving, a search was carried out at the couple’s home in Bexleyheath, south east London, on August 26, 2021.
A total of 17 kittens were found on the premises on the day of the search and a vet judged that six of them were suffering.
Those six cats were confiscated and one died a short time later, the RSPCA said.
A number of the kittens were living in hutches outside the house in the garden and their history of sales and complaints stretched back as far as 2015.
During the raid, Byrne and Angell tried to dispose of their mobile phones. Angell jumped out of the window and threw his phone in the front garden and while police were chasing him Byrne carried out a factory reset of hers.
Angell’s phone was recovered and revealed hundreds of images of kittens, enquiries about adverts and complaints from people reporting that their kittens were sick.
Messages also revealed that the couple found adverts for cheap kittens online, gave the cats flea treatments and then sold them on.
On one occasion Angell bragged about how he bought two kittens for £75 then sold them on for £600 each the next week.
Ms Stevens said analysis carried out by the RSPCA showed that the couple intended to make a gain of £278,870.
During an interview Angell confirmed that the kittens seized had not seen a vet as he does not agree with veterinary practices.
Byrne admitted that they breed cats and sell them but said they were not making a profit.
Byrne was a British Transport Police (BTP) officer when these crimes were carried out but after a misconduct investigation she was fired in January 2023.
A BTP misconduct hearing report said a hydroponics tent, two cannabis plants, bag of cannabis, half smoked joint and pack of cannabis seeds were also found at an address that she shared.
After the sentencing RSPCA inspector Kirsten Ormerod said: “This conclusion of this welfare case is the result of many months of work piecing together the operation that Byrne and Angell were carrying out from their home in Bexleyheath.
“I am incredibly grateful to the brave witnesses who helped us build this case.
“Welcoming a pet into their homes should have been a positive experience, but for many of them it resulted in large vet bills to try and save their brand new, poorly kitten, and for some, having them die within hours before their eyes - which will have been a devastating experience.
“We also thank the Metropolitan Police and London Borough of Bexley Council for their vital role in this investigation.”
Kitten breeding specifically isn’t formally regulated. In the UK you do not need a licence to sell a small number of offspring of pets you have bred.
However, the UK Government states that whilst this is the case, if you do this often or with many animals then you may be classed as a business and may need a licence.
You still need a licence if your business is based at home or you sell animals online, and you cannot sell kittens if you have not bred them yourself.
Ms Ormerod added: “This case shows why it is so important that anyone wanting to welcome a new kitten into their life needs to be careful when choosing him or her.
“There are many unsuitable breeders out there who can fool people into thinking the animals are healthy and are a one-off litter from a much loved pet, but often this is far from the truth.
“It is vital that new owners take the time to make sure their new pet has not come from one of them. Otherwise they may end up with all kinds of health and behavioural issues down the line.
“Better still, we would always encourage prospective pet owners to think about adopting one of the many cats in our rescue centres, who so desperately need and deserve a new home.”
