A screen shoot from a video on YouTube. The video material as it is from a CCTV camera belonging to the cat's caretaker Darryl Mann.
Monday August 23rd 2010: This was on TV today about half an hour ago....Things have moved on and the event was in the Times newspaper today 25th August so I am able to update this page albeit in a haphazard way! I now include a video of the event rather than a short clip as I think it fair to claim fair use under the laws of copyright. There is a public interest here. This site is not for profit and monies raised go to cat charities and running the site. Also the owner of the copyright who I believe is Darryl Mann can contact me and I will remunerate him if he wishes.
I have included a screen shot from a video from a Google search. The author has forbidden embedding it. The video is material from the CCTV camera attached to the wall of the house of the cat's caretaker Darryl Mann. The cat is Lola. The place, I believe, is Coventry.
Here is the video:
The women is about 55 years of age. She is Ms Bale. The information comes the Times newspaper of 25th August.
Ms Bale is not the cat's caretaker. She appears to walk along the pavement, see the cat (a tabby moggie cat) and decide to place it in what we call a "wheelie bin" in the UK. This is a rubbish (trash) bin with wheels so that the refuse collectors can get the rubbish in the lorry more easily.
She checks first (or at least pauses) to see if she is being watched. I am not sure but she appears to look up at the camera on Mr Mann's wall before dumping the cat in the bin. If I am correct this might be a case of a person seeking notoriety. Although, it seems it was a spur of the moment decision.
The plan for this woman was to throw the cat away in the general rubbish. If there have been other unsolved cases of cats going missing in the area this should encourage the police to investigate. The police however have said no crime was committed. I disagree with this. The RSPCA say it may be a case of animal cruelty. Animal cruelty is a crime under the Animal Welfare Act 2006 as it must cause suffering.
The cat was trapped for 16 hours and then discovered and saved. If he or she had not been saved she would almost certainly have been killed, perhaps crushed in the lorry compactor or suffocated.
This appears to be unpremeditated and spur of the moment cat abuse in the UK by what seems to be a normal, average, unassuming women. The kind of person you would not associated with animal cruelty.
And there lies the truth of the situation. It is the normal person, your next door neighbour who can and who sometimes (rarely) does do this sort of thing. They are all around us.
It seems that almost anyone is capable of it.
