FOR months, the high wooden gates leading to Bank Top Stables concealed a gruesome secret that would once again put the North-East's shameful animal cruelty record in the headlines.

Locked up in pitch-black stables, with no food or water and sharing sodden bedding with decomposing bodies, the animals tried everything to cling to life.

Starving dogs tried to gnaw through a 2in-thick wooden door for a breath of fresh air, and desperate horses charged and kicked at the stable doors trying to reach the piles of food that lay on the other side.

But as the strength ebbed out of their starved and dehydrated bodies, they lay down on top of one another to die.

Those that lasted longest or were placed in pens with dead animals appeared to have clung onto life a little longer by feeding on the flesh of their former stable mates.

When animal welfare officers from the RSPCA arrived with police to break down the gates, they could barely believe what they found inside.

Some were physically sick because of the stench, and others were so disgusted by the squalor the animals had been left in that they had to leave.

Several members of the clean-up team, who wore full body suits and face masks to shield them from the smell, had been involved in mass culls and incineration of farm livestock destroyed during the 2001 foot and mouth outbreak.

But that failed to prepare them for the grisly task of clearing the stables where nearly 40 animals appeared to have been locked up and left die.

A worker involved in the clean-up operation, who did not want to be named, described the harrowing scene as he entered Bank Top Stables soon after the discovery was made.

He said: "It was absolutely disgusting. I've been involved in clean-up operations and moved dead bodies before, but never experienced anything like this.

"It is disgusting, this has really turned my stomach. Nothing has ever got to me in the same way. I'm accustomed to the smell of death, but this has been beyond belief.

"The smell was overpowering - it stuck to my clothes and I had to throw them away at the end of the first day.

"There were maggots, flies and mice swarming all over the place. The carcasses were all at different stages, some were just bones and others were turning to liquid."

Alongside the block of stables, which were supplied with power and water, there is a static caravan, which, although in a poor state, appears to have been lived in until fairly recently.

Inside, decorative plates and cups adorned with images of horses and dogs hang on the wall, giving the impression it was once home to an animal lover.

A few days before the yard gates were forced open and the horrific scene revealed, villagers in Trimdon had noticed foul smells drifting over their homes on the wind.

Simon Prest, company director of Trimdon Building Supplies, which is next door to the block of stables, said: "The place started to smell about two weeks ago.

"Then, last week, the wind brought the smell into the village and it was repulsive - the smell of rotting flesh.

"Every customer that came was commenting on it, saying 'What on earth is that smell'.

"We had no idea what had happened, we didn't even know what animals there were there because we never saw any horses."