The extraordinary story of a South African man caught red-handed raping a neighbour’s cat was fake news. I’m shocked to be honest because he was said to have been caught red-handed and there were two witnesses, the cat’s owner and an employee of the security firm, Reaction Unit South Africa. Unless this fake news story is itself fake news and a cover up to protect South African tourism! It could be. It may be a political cover up. Who knows?
The story was all over the Internet including on my website (see link at base of page). The story looked reliable and was backed up by data which claims that bestiality is not uncommon in South Africa.
SPCA statement
However, SPCA Durban have since issued an official statement on their Facebook page on October 30. The statement makes it clear that once the matter had been reported to the police and investigated by the Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit of SAPS it was discovered that the cat owner was the only alleged witness and her evidence is unreliable.
Once the alleged crime had been reported to the police it had to be then referred to the SPCA. They contacted the owner on 29th October to arrange to see the cat in question. The cat was trapped and the owner decided to surrender the cat to the SPCA. She decided she no longer wanted cat.
The SPCA inspector both examined the cat and interviewed the cat’s owner. The owner appears to have changed her story dramatically. She stated that she had seen the cat on the man’s lap in his room hence cat fur on his trousers. That is as far as it went. There was no bestiality.
Cat in poor condition but no evidence of rape
The cat was in poor condition and has been euthanised. She had been poorly cared for by the owner and was suffering from invasive skin cancer on both ears. She was underweight and infested with ticks. There was no evidence that the cat had been raped. There were no signs of recent trauma.
If there had been any medical evidence to support the rape allegation the SPCA would have worked with the police force and ensured that a case of bestiality was opened.
RUSA and cat’s owner to blame
It has transpired that Reaction Unit South Africa (RUSA) had sensationalised the story. They had publicised the case without first investigating the voracity of the cat owner’s allegations we are told. From my reading of the news at the time they appear to have compounded the problem by themselves claiming that they had evidence from their employee that the man was caught red-handed.
If this information is true, and it appears to be, both the cat’s owner and the private security firm RUSA could be sued by the man in question for defamation. The man should be compensated handsomely but no doubt it won’t happen.
Below is the Facebook statement which I have embedded into this webpage and from which this article has been written.
Sounds like a jolly mix of cat hate, mysogeny and as you suggest, protecting the tourism industry.
How sad, that yet again, a cat’s life has been ended all to assuage the sheer hysterical BS from separate agencies, the media and poor stewardship of one, innocent feline life.
Human beings, they will lie themselves inside out to justify hurting, neglecting and abusing other species. Too often it is the domestic cat who suffers from the living abortion that is human ego.
Poor, poor cat.