Yes, believe it or not an animal rights campaigner has put his estranged wife’s cat into a tumble dryer just to spite her and upset her.
His 30 year marriage ended and the life of the family cat almost ended as well after he put his wife’s cat in the tumble dryer.
Preston magistrates heard that Martyn Birchall, 55, from Chorley, Lancashire put their one-year-old calico cat, Rosie, in the tumble dryer while his wife was at work. He denied he did it.
Good news: Rosie survived! We are not told whether the tumble dryer was used with the cat inside it or whether his wife discovered the cat in the tumble dryer before using the machine. I would suspect that the latter happened because it is quite difficult to avoid seeing a cat in a tumble dryer when loading it up!
However, this was a serious matter and a serious attempt at animal cruelty for which Birchall was convicted and fined £270 plus £327 costs. He has also been banned from seeing his wife and daughters under a restraining order.This is sad, especially for his daughters who no doubt need a father. That in fact is by far the greater punishment for Mr Birchall. His children are also being punished and I think actually that this order is wrong. Cats protection quite rightly say that this sort of animal cruelty needs to be dealt with and the perpetrators punished but the children do not need to be punished as well.
The interesting and worrying aspect of this animal cruelty story is, as mentioned, the fact that the perpetrator is an animal rights campaigner. Clearly he has dubious morals. He does not seem to be a committed animal rights campaigner, let’s put it that way.
You would have thought that people engaged in animal rights campaigning have high levels of integrity but no, sadly. Once again we are let down by humanity.
His wife, Amanda, said that he is a changed man because in the past he would not have done such an act. Mr Birchall is living in homeless accommodation and his wife says that he took tranquilizers which has changed his behaviour.
This is why scrutiny and background checks are so important among animal advocates.
I don’t care that he denies his cruelty. But, for the wife to come to his defense claiming that he changed due to
tranquilizers, tells us something more about her.
I’m for stocks in a public yard and large baskets of very rotten fruits to hurl.