Shocked cat owners have found their pets bleeding on their doorsteps in a series of attacks in Brighton, a court has heard.
One woman said: “I immediately thought it was a stab.”
In a statement read to the court, she described how blood “gushed” from her cat Gideon, 11.
He eventually recovered from the three-quarter inch injury, she told the court, and the vet’s bills for his operation have risen to over £ 1,600.
Mall security guard Steve Bouquet is accused of killing nine cats and injuring seven others in the town of East Sussex.
The attacks left detectives puzzled for months until CCTV from a cat owner appeared to capture an attack, prosecutors said.
Bouquet, 54, of Brighton, is on trial after pleading not guilty to 16 counts of criminal damage related to cats and one count of possession of a knife.
Chichester Crown Court jurors learned on Wednesday how the owners of several cats realized their pets had been injured.
Carolyn Green found her short-haired tabby Tommy lying on her doorstep, clearly injured, after being released about 15 minutes earlier.
“I picked up Tommy and noticed blood on my t-shirt,” Ms Green said in a statement read by the prosecution, describing how she then took him to the vet for treatment.
“The vet called and reported Tommy had been stabbed – I was shocked.”
Tommy had suffered a 4cm cut, the vet found, and did not survive his injury.
Penny Vessey told the court her black and white cat Rigby was “always incredibly friendly” and liked to lie outside the house for people to pet her.
But that stopped after Rigby was injured on Halloween night in 2018, she said.
As Rigby has physically recovered from her injury, Ms Vessey said it was only very recently that she started engaging with people again.
On Monday, jurors learned that after Bouquet’s arrest on June 2, 2019, police raided his house and found a knife in the kitchen …
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Source: news.sky.com
This notice was published: 2021-06-23 15:56:00
