An East Sussex smallholder has been banned from keeping animals for five years after neglecting his sheep.

Oliver Joyce, 27, of Manor Farm Cottages, South Heighton, Newhaven, was fined £1,500 by magistrates and ordered to pay £500 costs.

Joyce, who has stopped keeping sheep since the legal action started but still owns cattle and goats and breeds Shetland ponies, intends to appeal against the sentence.

He admitted six offences at Brighton Magistrates Court, including causing unnecessary suffering to sheep between December 2000 and February 2001 and failing to legally dispose of sheep carcasses.

The other offences were failing to keep and produce records about his flock.

The court heard he had a 1999 conviction for causing unnecessary suffering to seven cows.

Robert Hall, prosecuting for East Sussex Trading Standards department, said Joyce, who kept his flock on three fields he rented at Furnace Lane, Heathfield, between April 2000 and March last year, had failed to provide sufficient food for the animals.

Investigators from the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs visited the fields, where 128 sheep were kept, following complaints.

In December 2000, vets found four dead sheep and four dying sheep. Others were showing signs of the disease sheep scab.

Mr Hall said Joyce and his mother, who also took care of the flock, were not registered with East Sussex County Council as sheep keepers.

They were given advice to change the diet immediately but when the vets returned in January they continued to have concerns.

A total of 73 sheep were in one field with no access to fresh water and a number had lesions around their eyes. On a return visit a few days later they found 14 sheep carcasses.

Nigel Weller, defending, said Joyce had dedicated his life to his animals and appealed to the magistrates not to ban him.

He said: "This was neglect by omission and when the error of his ways were pointed out to him he immediately addressed them. There is no suggestion of wilful neglect."