Neil Tregarthen, from Truro, Cornwall felt compelled to spend £10,000 on a private detective to investigate the air gun shooting of his daughter’s black cat, Farah, in Burnt House Lane, Exeter, because the Devon and Cornwall police were disinterested in properly investigating the crime. The police deny this and say they have investigated fully.
The attitude of the police gave the impression to the Tregarthen family that the killing of a kitten is a relatively minor crime which fails to justify any more work.
Neil Tregarthen says the police have failed to recognise that cat abuse and cat killing is often perpetrated by people who go on to commit major crime against people. Also, this not a minor crime for the family and all the cat lovers of the UK. There is a massive emotional aspect to this. The police’s attitude encourages further crimes of a similar nature.
The private detective compiled a file of 6 weeks of work, which contained evidence good enough for Neil Tregarthen and family to seriously consider commencing a private prosecution. They obviously have a name to prosecute. In fact, they have a witness who saw the main suspect shooting another cat. The police reject the evidence as not good enough.
The police refused to use the evidence to start a criminal prosecution of their own. Why isn’t the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) involved. The police appear to have blocked them getting involved. Has the file been sent to the CPS direct?
The whole experience has been particularly dire for the family because the cat staggered home and died two days later. The cat was in tremendous pain and Neil’s daughter had to endure this experience.
A vet tried to save Farah but failed. There are two sides to this story. I favour the side which says the police are disinterested in pursuing what they consider to be minor crime which includes the killing of cats, burglary and muggings etc.. This is not good enough. Budget cut backs are not to blame for this attitude. It is just the police failing to prioritise properly.
Source: BBC News on TV and BBC online.
Nay, not at all. I hate criminally-irresponsible pet-owners who kill their own pets by not knowing what it takes to truly love and care for them properly. Apparently this too eludes you. Join the father.
You have the gall and bad taste to insult the father, you moron. You are Woody or one of his gang. Your comment is pathetic and shouts out bias, quite frankly. You hate cats and that comes across strongly.
That’s one truly poor detective. Or one that just likes to con everyone out of their money. He has his daughter’s kitten-killer right there in his sights. The father killed her kitten by not teaching his daughter how to protect her own animals from all harms. Would he hire a detective to find out which car ran-over his daughter’s cat too? Or perhaps to sleuth-down which gutter had some antifreeze in it that the cat lapped-up. Really? None of you see who the real kitten-killer is? Wow. Do any of the following phrases, upon which many animal-cruelty laws are written; such as “animal-neglect”, “animal-endangerment”, and “animal-abandonment” mean absolutely nothing to any of you? Then you wonder why your cats die all over the streets of the world so you can cry and whinge about it and ask for copious donations to try to stop them from dying everywhere. Self-victimizers, much?
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the police failed to fully investigate this crime. Currently they like to blame budget cuts and being overstretched, but my own experience is that the police have never been very interested in what they consider minor crimes – especially ones against animals. No wonder people get tempted to take matters into their own hands.
If Mr Tregarthen has sufficient evidence, perhaps the RPSCA might be able to prosecute the perpetrator? How many more victims will there be if the culprit thinks they can get away with it because the police aren’t interested?
A lot a people will think the same. It is about education (a lack of it) and the failure of the police to commit to solving the crime.
I hope somebody takes a shot gun to this low life.