An animal lover has been left shocked and upset after her tortoise was tortured to death.

Joan Field, of Queensway, Sheerness, had locked Fred away for the night in his wooden pen in her garden.

The following morning when she went outside the lid of the pen had been lifted and he was gone.

After putting posters up in the area, a neighbour told Joan they had seen Fred in the Fleet a week later.

They managed to get him out, but he was barely alive, and they rushed him to the emergency vets in Maidstone.

Unfortunately they were unable to save him.

Joan said: “The vet said he had been so badly ill treated, he couldn’t believe it – he had never seen anything like it.

“His shell was all smashed and his back was broken and then they had just thrown him in the fleet.

“I feel shocked and my grandson was very upset as he used to feed him. It was awful to see what they had done to him.

“I’m still trying to come to terms with it.”

Joan had looked after Fred for 15 years after inheriting him for a friend and she believes he could have been as old as 50.

Chairman of the Island RSPCA, Angela Walder, is appealing for information about what happened.

She said: “I don’t know what we can do with these low lives but we do know now there is a link between cruelty to animals and cruelty to children.

“These sort of people need to be prosecuted – they pick on the weak and vulnerable whether it be animals, children or the elderly.”

If you have any information about what happened to Fred the tortoise, which went missing from home on Sunday, June 8, please phone Angela on 01795 872583.