An 80-year-old man has been banned from keeping animals, fined £2,600 and handed a suspended jail sentence after shooting a cat, which later died following surgery to save it.

Patrick Medford of Yew Tree Close, Welling, pleaded guilty to causing unnecessary suffering by shooting a cat with an air rifle.

He was sentenced at Bexley Magistrates’ Court on Monday.

Tabby cat Ethel, who belonged to Medford's neighbour, was shot on September 29 last year and died the next day due to complications after emergency surgery was carried out in an effort to save her.

RSPCA Inspector Harriet Daliday investigated the incident after she was informed the next day that female tabby cat had been shot with an air rifle in her abdomen and the pellet was embedded in her intestines.

She said: “I spoke to Ethel’s owner on the phone and she informed me that she believed her neighbour had shot her cat with an air rifle on September 29, the cat had undergone surgery and was recovering at the vets where the pellet had been extracted.

“At around 3.30pm, I arrived at the vets and spoke to the vet who handed me the extracted pellet sealed inside a biohazard waste bag and showed me photos of the cat during surgery and of the x-ray. Later that evening, I was informed that sadly the cat had died.

“The same day Ethel’s owner emailed me a list of chronological events leading up to the trip to the vet including having received three threatening emails from her neighbour, Mr Medford regarding the cat being in his garden.

“There was hearsay to suggest that Mr Medford was a holder of an air rifle and used to shoot pigeons. I was also sent CCTV footage which caught the noise of the shot on video at 4.51pm on September 29 and the neighbour can be seen in the footage looking towards the direction of the suspect’s address after hearing the noise.”

Inspector Daliday then visited Medford at his address on October 6 where the officer was shown the rifle in the upstairs rear bedroom overlooking the garden. The garden also had multiple cat scarers and an automatic sprinkler system used to scare off cats and foxes.

A ballistics report was later carried out by police on the gun and the pellet extracted from Ethel. The pellet was found to be a match to the rifle.

The court heard vet reports stating Ethel was in severe shock and severe abdominal pain when they examined her just two hours after she came home vomiting and clearly in pain.

The report stated: “She could not walk and had a very low heart rate. An X-ray was taken of her abdomen and this revealed a shotgun pellet clearly visible in her abdomen. We also found a fresh puncture wound on her abdomen consistent with a recent puncture from a pellet. Ethel was stabilized overnight and had exploratory abdominal surgery the following day.

“During this surgery four puncture wounds were found in her intestines where the pellet had penetrated. Two punctures were in her small intestine and two in her colon. Ethel recovered from the surgery however succumbed to sepsis related complications post op and died despite all our best efforts.”

Speaking after the prosecution, Inspector Daliday added: “This is a tragic case in which a cat was callously shot and sadly died. This would have caused poor Ethel suffering and also caused a lot of heartbreak for her owner who lost her much-loved pet.

“Unfortunately, air rifle attacks are not as rare as we would like. The injuries caused by such attacks are horrific and often fatal as was the case with poor Ethel.”

In mitigation, Medford said he did not intend to kill the cat.

He was sentenced to 16 weeks in custody, suspended for two years and was disqualified from keeping all animals indefinitely.

He was also ordered to pay £600 in costs as well as £2,036 in compensation to the owner of Ethel.

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