A court today heard a horrendous account of animal cruelty allegedly by a man who was supposed to be running the Abandoned Animals Association where in fact dogs were starving so badly they ate each other.

Freddie Fenech, 72, of St Julians, had set up the AAA and was yesterday arraigned on defrauding donors of the money donations they made for the animals by keeping the money for himself. Donations were made by Maltese nationals and foreigners, mainly Germans.

Magistrate Anthony Mizzi heard two of five association volunteers testify yesterday. The five had in April, 2009, reported Fenech, himself a former policeman, to the police, accusing him of failing to note down the donations in accounts and that he used a system of blackmail. The sanctuary he looked after was in a degrading state, with filth everywhere. There were cases of dogs eating other dogs because of starvation.

Rosaline Agius, of Mosta, who used to help Fenech, said there has since been much improvement at the sanctuaries, though other work remained to be done.

She testified that her family loved animals and they had come to know the accused when once they found a dog and somebody suggested to them to pass it on to Fenech. She was then about 14 years old. Once every three months the accused used to call at their home and they would donate Lm50 (€116) or Lm100.

She loved animals so well, she said, that it was only for them that she gave donations. Her family trusted Fenech, though he had never issued a receipt for the money they gave.

Ms Agius said that when she was about 21 years old she had gone during the Christmas holidays to help Fenech and saw that the situation at the sanctuary was awful. She saw dogs eating other dogs, and thought that maybe Fenech did not have resources. But in time, the witness said, she discovered that the accused received huge sums of money in donations but the money never benefitted the animals.

In summer, she said, Fenech would not even hire a bowser so that the dogs would have water to drink. She proposed that female puppies be spayed, but Fenech ignored her. Many people also donated food but it never reached the sanctuary. A German woman once donated €300 worth of food but no one ever saw it. The accused used also to collect money in donation tins and would set up donor stands in Bay Street and Sliema, boasting that he collected Lm40 from each stand. The money never reached the sanctuary.

Fenech used also to sell puppies and foreigners sometimes donated a boxful of dog leads and collars each costing Lm7. Even dog medicine used to disappear from the sanctuary. When the sanctuary applied for funds from the government, with each sanctuary being given €10,500, Fenech was sorely disappointed and said he could kill the dogs.

He threatened them when they applied for the government funds and had told another volunteer, Romina Formosa, that he wanted to throw her, Rosaline Agius, off a bridge. Once there was a donation of Lm3,000 for maintenance work at the sanctuary, but the money disappeared.

Romina Formosa, of Victoria, who lives in Xemxija, said she came to know Fenech and that he collected abandoned animals, from the media. She loves animals and volunteered to help at the sanctuary, at Luqa. She used to go once a week and the money which was collected was misappropriated. She tried to organise and run a system to collect money.

She used to ask Fenech for receipts for petrol, water and other objects, and for membership fees by members who helped the animals. Charity fund-raising activities were also held, but all was for nothing. A German woman once told her she had sent a pallet of sacks of food worth about €700 to the sanctuary, but it never got there.

A German man once went over to the accused and handed a sum of money to him, to repair the sanctuary’s roofs, but nothing was done. Fenech used often to threaten the volunteers and tell them that there were those who would kill for Lm20.

A certain Michael Balzan, who owned a petrol station, used to cash cheques for Fenech.

Anglu Farrugia is defence counsel.