Lucky cat survives being shot three times and hanged

LONDON - In the worst case of animal cruelty ever seen, a defenceless cat was held down, shot three times and nearly hanged in Britain.

The feline, named Jessie, returned home just after midnight with air rifle wounds in her neck, ear and face, and just two days earlier the family’s other pet cat Lilo had been shot in the leg.

Owners John and Dawn Morvan were shocked by the condition of Jessie, and when they took her to the vet, as besides the pellets in her head ligature marks were found on her neck, and her tongue had turned black.

“This was sheer evil. It doesn’t matter whether you like animals or not, it doesn’t give anyone the right to do something as disgusting as this,” the Daily Mail quoted bus driver John, 46, as saying.

“After she was treated for the pellet wounds she came back home but went downhill again so we took her back to the vets and he found ligature marks on her neck and a black blood clot on her tongue.

“These marks had taken a couple of days to appear and they proved that they had tried to hang her as well - it’s beyond belief,” he stated.

The poor cat has been left with nerve damage, facial paralysis and partially deaf and blind as a result of her injuries.

Vet Daniel Lyons, of Chantry Vets, who carried out a painstaking two-hour operation to remove the pellets from Jessie, said it was “without a doubt” the most shocking animal cruelty case he’d seen.

“If you shot a cat once it would run away, so it must have been incapacitated or, which is even more blood-curdling, two people were involved and one held her down. This is wicked,” he said.

“This cat is lucky to be alive but I’m not sure if nerve function or hearing will ever come back. The prognosis does not look good,” he added.

Following the traumatic chain of events Dawn, 42, is having a large pen built in the garden, allowing the cats to play outside in safety.

“Incidents of this nature are extremely distressing for the owner and we take it very seriously,” PC Justin Hayward, of the neighbourhood investigation unit, said.

“This was a nasty attack on two family pets and we will fully investigate both incidents to ensure the culprits are caught,” he added. (ANI)