A WOMAN convicted last year of causing unnecessary suffering to a cat failed to persuade magistrates to allow her to keep pets again, yesterday.

Janice Lawson - formerly known as Banthorpe - was fined £400 last August when a Siamese cat she owned was found in an emaciated condition.

In the care of the RSPCA, it more than doubled its weight in a month, although Lawson denied neglecting it, insisting that she was unaware it was ill.

However, the 45-year-old was convicted and banned from keeping animals for five years.

Two Jack Russells, a cockatiel and another Siamese cat were subsequently taken from her home on Northallerton's Beech Grove and put in the care of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

With just more than a year of the ban completed yesterday, Lawson was hoping magistrates in Richmond would review her sentence.

She told the court, since last year's hearing, she had built a run for cats in her back garden and had even rescued two stray kittens and an injured starling - both with the knowledge of the RSPCA.

However, with the charity opposing her request, magistrates decided she had failed to prove she had overcome what the RSPCA described as "the gap between her aspirations and abilities".

Magistrates ordered that the ban should stand - and that Lawson should pay £250 towards the RSPCA's costs.