A dead cat found in a seated position outside a house in Sittingbourne had parts of its body "deliberately cut off".

Animals Lost and Found in Kent say a member of the public alerted them to the dead animal outside a property in Saffron Way on Monday.

A statement on the organisation's website said: "The cat was sitting in front of a door on a path in a seated position, she thought the cat was alive until she went to stroke the cat and quickly realised the cat was no longer with us."

A volunteer from the animal charity, which works to reunite missing pets with their owners, attended and after noticing some "oddities" brought the body back to its headquarters.

The statement added: "Part of the cat's body looked as though they had been deliberately cut off with a sharp blade.

"Photographs were taken and passed to the police."

The cat was male, about 10 to 13-years-old, tabby and neutered. It was not wearing a collar and was not microchipped. Its owners are now being sought.

Animals Lost and Found said it filed the incident under Operation Takahe - the name for the Metropolitan Police's investigation into the so-called M25 cat killer, who is believed to have struck hundreds of times over the last two years, mostly in London and Kent.

Last month a dead cat was found in Chatham with injuries thought to be similar to those suffered by other animals attacked by the same suspected individual.