TWO ten-week-old Jack Russell puppies starved to death in an empty house in Bishopdown Road, Salisbury.

Salisbury magistrates heard that the puppies were left alone in the locked house for a week. They had been boarded into an area of the kitchen and were unable to get to a sack of dried food which stood nearby.

Their owner, Sarah Jane Drewitt (19), of Barnards Hill Drive, Bemerton Heath, Salisbury, was convicted in her absence of causing unnecessary suffering to the two animals.

Drewitt did not enter any pleas and was not at the hearing after failing for the third time to appear at court.

RSPCA prosecutor Malcolm Baker said: "The defendant allowed the puppies to starve to death over a period of some days by abandoning them in a locked room."

The court heard that RSPCA inspectors visited the property in Bishopdown Road and tagged the door so that they could tell whether anyone entered or left the building.

A week later all the doors and windows were still intact and had not been opened. RSPCA inspector William Hendry visited Drewitt and interviewed her about the puppies.

A statement from her was read in court in which she admitted that the puppies were her responsibility and that she was not sure when she had last visited them.

A three-year-old Jack Russell was found alive. The dead pups were two of a litter of five to which she had given birth.

Drewitt said one of the five had died at birth. She found two more puppies dead a few weeks later and borrowed a spade to bury them in the garden.

She said she did not know why they had died. She admitted that the last two puppies found by the RSPCA had "probably" starved to death. The magistrates found the case against her proved and adjourned for sentencing until November 15.