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Charges of animal neglect laid against a Salisbury couple were withdrawn by the Moncton Crown yesterday.

Laurie Bourque and Dawn Smith appeared in Moncton provincial court for their scheduled trial, represented by defence lawyer Maurice Bastarache, but prosecutor Remi Allard withdrew the charges. They had been charged with failing to provide proper food, water, shelter and medical attention to a seven-year-old Irish setter named Tyler.

The case appeared in court in April and both accused pleaded guilty to the charge.

But when Allard gave the details of the case to Judge Irwin Lampert as part of the sentencing hearing, both Smith and Bourque claimed he was exaggerating what happened.

A sentencing hearing was scheduled and the couple eventually hired a lawyer. They later had their guilty pleas reversed and the matter was scheduled for trial.

The Crown withdrew the charges because it could not proceed with the trial, one of the reasons being the unavailability of a witness who was supposed to provide expert testimony.

During the aborted sentencing hearing in April, the court heard a 16-year-old girl had been asked to watch Tyler while the owners were out of town in the summer of 2007. The girl found the dog was kept in a crate in a dark room in appalling conditions and needed medical treatment. The dog was taken for help and the charge was later laid under the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act.

Smith told Lampert during the hearing that someone else had been left in charge of the dog at the time the animal was found in distress.