Story By: Bartosz Staszewski, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT

These shocking images show the rotting corpses of dead animals owned by a woman farmer whose husband was in jail, children had been playing among the carcasses and brother in laws were lying drunk and covered in faeces.

Picture Credits: CEN/@DIOZpl

The animal welfare inspectors who raided the farm discovered that the children had shockingly been playing among the dead animals, and said locals had told them she drank during her pregnancies leaving at least some of the children mentally disabled.

The shocking case was apparently well known to local police who they said had refused to act in order to stop officers having to face the consequences of failing to deal with the problem. The inspectors even complained that police had tried to stop them entering the farm.

They say the woman, aged 42, whose husband is in jail for domestic violence, had in total produced nine children. His two brothers who were the men that were found drunk on the floor was supposed to be caring for the animals in his absence.

When her husband was taken to jail, she had refused to look after the animals because she regarded it as his responsibility. She said she had another form of income and did not need the money from the animals which were supposed to be cared for by her brother-in-law’s.

Pictures taken by the Lower Silesian Inspectorate for Animal Protection and released to local media show dead animals scattered around the property which is located in the village of Miloszow in the Lower Silesian Voivodeship in western Poland. The dead bodies include cows and chickens, some of them had even rotted into the ground.

One dead cow’s eyes appear to have been removed whilst ducks and another cow are stood next to it. During the intervention, it was found that hens and other fowl had eaten the eyes of dead cows to survive and had been pecking at the remains of the other dead animals.

Local media report the animals on the farm were left to starve for weeks before dying in agony, and locals complained that the animals could be heard crying for help and the smell of rotting flesh had filled the air yet complaints had gone unheard until the animal protection agency got involved.

The inspectors’ raid on the property is said to have lasted nine hours as the local police had been obstructive and did not want to allow them to take away the animals that were still alive.

The Mayor of Lesna who visited the site and supported the decision to remove the remaining animals from the farm.

Inspector Konrad Kuzminski, spokesperson for the Lower Silesian Inspectorate for Animal Protection, told Central European News (CEN): “It was the fault of bureaucracy and veterinarians who didn’t do their job properly and nobody raised the alarm about the conditions on this farm. We’ve met resistance from the local police who were covering up the family’s crimes towards the animals as they knew they would face consequences for not tackling this problem sooner.”

The corpses of the dead animals were also collected and prosecutors have confirmed an autopsy would be carried out to determine the cause of death. 

A heifer, some Vietnamese pigs, goats, a rabbit and some pigeons were immediately taken to a temporary home where they were given medical treatment and food.

The mother of nine was detained and the children are under the care of their oldest siblings. The suspect faces up to five years imprisonment if found guilty of keeping livestock in grossly inadequate conditions.