A VET has told how she recommended exotic animals be removed from their pens after finding them in appalling conditions.

Hannah Bold said that some of the animals kept by 41-year-old Colin Shaw were in danger of getting serious infections if they stayed in his care. Some of the pens where they were kept were inadequate because they were dirty and too small.

Mr Shaw, of Market Crescent, Wingate, County Durham, denies 27 charges of causing unnecessary suffering to exotic animals including crocodiles, alligators, pythons and terrapins.

Miss Bold told Bishop Auckland magistrates that one snake would have died eventually if it had remained in a pen in a shed on Low Grange Farm, Wingate.

She said that the reticulated python was in a lethargic state. "On my first look it did not appear to be alive. It did not respond to our movements past its cage and it seemed to be lying limp in a pool of water which was dirty.

"The snake had retained shed skin which was hanging off it.''

She said that it should have taken quite a lot of people to handle it as it was such a powerful creature. Instead, it took one person to hold it while Miss Bold examined it.

Miss Bold also told how crocodiles and caimans had lost teeth due to infections.

The case continues.