Cat Burnt In Premeditated Attack

AN RSPCA inspector has described her horror and upset after she was called to pick up a cat that is thought to have been deliberately set on fire.

The badly charred remains of the pet were found by an elderly woman driving along Kiln Road in Sherborne St John between 8am and 8.30am on Sunday 27 March.

The ferocious heat from the blaze had caused the surface of the road where the animal’s body was discovered, to melt.

It’s not known whether the cat was already dead before it was set alight, and the charred condition of the torso has made it impossible to tell whether the animal was male or female.

The burnt remains of what could have been a collar which had disintegrated in the heat, were also found.

Shocked by what happened, the motorist kindly stopped, picked up the cat’s body and contacted the RSPCA.

Deputy chief inspector Hannah Boyle, who attended the incident, said: “I’ve been working as an inspector for over three years and I can honestly say this is one of the most cruel, sad and upsetting things I have ever seen or been called to deal with.

Such was the condition of the body that we can’t say whether this poor animal was alive before he or she was callously set on fire, but even if this wasn’t the case, what sort of person gets pleasure or thinks it’s funny to do this to someone’s pet?

The body still smelled very strongly of smoke when I arrived, which suggests to me that the cat had only recently been set on fire, and from everything I saw at the scene I believe it was premeditated. The tufts of fur that weren’t singed and charred were pale in colour, so we think this was probably a white or pale-coloured cat.

He or she was obviously someone’s much loved pet as there were the disintegrated remains of a collar near the body and a flattened area of fur around the neck where the collar would have sat.

I visited the finder at her house to retrieve the body and to say thank you for stopping, and we shed a few tears together. Like me, she’s a cat owner and there are just no words to describe how we felt when we saw what had happened.”