RSPCA: Men sentenced after fire revealed 24 cats in squalid house - where 'urine smelled stronger than smoke'

Warning: This story contains graphic details and photos which some readers may find disturbing.

Two Welsh men have received a ten-year pet ban after they failed to provide a suitable environment for their 24 rescue cats - after a house fire alerted authorities to the home's squalid conditions.

Martin Clowes, 55, and Gavin James Cromwell, 42, both of Tyn-Y-Celler, each previously pleaded guilty to one offence under the Animal Welfare Act for not meeting the needs of their cats. The pair were this month sentenced at Swansea Magistrate’s Court to 12 weeks imprisonment - suspended for 12 months - and were also banned from keeping animals for 10 years.

The court heard that t the RSPCA were called by South Wales Fire & Rescue Service on 22 March last year - to assist them at a property after a house fire. On her arrival, RSPCA animal rescue officer Paula Milton was told by a fire officer that they had found two cats alive inside the house. She was also told by a neighbour that the owner had opened up a rescue called Jemima’s Place - which at first opened in Bridgend and then moved to the Pyle Road property.

When she entered, she said: “The smell from the house was so strong with urine and faeces. As I entered the house there was a smell of smoke, but the smell of urine and faeces was overpowering the smell of the smoke.

"In the living room there were lots and lots of black rubbish bags full of soiled cat litter, this was piled about three-feet high, the rest of the living room was covered with clutter and the floor was covered in faeces," she continued. “There were a few deceased cats in the living room on the floor.”

She also said there were rooms filled with piles of black rubbish bags full of soiled cat litter - with some piled up to six feet high. Once the fire service had finished upstairs, Ms Milton and their owner Clowes worked to catch the surviving cats. Clowes told her he did not live at the house, but visited three or four times a day to feed the cats.

Unfortunately, a total of 11 cats were found dead at the property. Thirteen cats were found alive and were subsequently taken into RSPCA care. Three were removed by the RSPCA on the day of the fire, two were removed by a member of the public and taken to a vet before the RSPCA arrived, and four were removed by Clowes. In the following days, rescuers caught a further four cats with the help of neighbours.

In RSPCA deputy chief inspector Gemma Cooper's statement to the court, she wrote the environment in which 24 cats were living was “not safe, clean or hygienic”. There were no litter trays provided, she said, and the cats were toileting all over the floor - and an electric heater was left on inside the house while it was unoccupied, which was an “obvious hazard”.

In mitigation the court heard that the pair had good intentions but lost control, and that the defendants were regretful and remorseful over what had happened. The court also heard that - another animal charity who are no longer running - removed around 30 cats in poor health from Jemima’s Place back in 2021 when Clowes and Cromwell admitted they could not cope.

The 13 cats involved in this case were signed over to the RSPCA, and have since been rehomed.