Gray family deny blame in Spindle Farm horse trial

A teenager who cannot be named for legal reasons, faces the same charges.
The defence counsel team made up of barristers Nigel Weller, Michael Fullerton and Richard Cherrill told Bicester Magistrates Court on Wednesday there was "no case to answer" as part of a legal submission to have the case abandoned.
They claimed there had been no evidence linking Gray and his colleagues to the animal cruelty, presented to the court during the 11-week trial. Robert Seabrook, prosecuting for the RSPCA, said that despite all the defendants denying involvement with the offences, they acted as a collective and were all to blame.
He said: "Mr Fullerton's submission was that the 15-year-old was only concerned with the pets and not with any other animals. Mr Cherrill said Jodie Gray was frightened of the horses. She had nothing to do with the horses."
Harrowing evidence gathered at the Grays' horse trading premises had shown severely emaciated animals tethered with no food or water. The rotting bodies of maltreated animals were left to decompose among living ones and 12 donkeys were kept in a pen measuring just nine feet square, the court heard.
RSPCA investigators who raided the farm on January 4 last year also saw a mountain of bones and horse skulls piled up in a corner of a muddy field. However the court heard the defendants insist they had no part in the maltreatment of the animals.
Mr Seabrook told the court that James Gray admitted owning "about 200" horses. He has stated in interviews that "you're always going to have a few die when you got that many. They have got worms."
Mr Seabrook went onto argue that the defendants could not pass the blame onto each other. He added: "It is a positive virement by the five, which is symptomatic of a joint enterprise."
The trial continues.