A cat owner has spoken of her family’s heartbreak after their loved pet was shot in the head.
Catrina Flannery is now pleading with other animal owners to stay vigilant following the attack.
She found her daughter’s white cat, Chilly, dead behind a neighbour’s shed in Little Broughton, near Cockermouth, last Monday.
It appeared that he had been shot between the eyes with an air pellet.
Mrs Flannery had let Chilly out on Sunday night as she did every night at 10pm. He usually returned about an hour later.
She said: “He wasn’t there when I got up in the morning. I put his breakfast down for him and went to work.
“When I came home a man from across the road asked me if my cat was missing. I said ‘no, I just haven’t seen him today’.
“He then said he was dead behind somebody’s garage. He had been shot.”
Mrs Flannery got Chilly as a kitten nearly four years ago for her 15-year-old daughter Kayla. She said that the pet had became part of the family and that her twin daughters were devastated by his death.
“I had to keep my daughters off school for two days from lack of sleep,” Mrs Flannery, of Ghyll Bank, added.
“The first night, I was really scared because I have got five rabbits in the garden and if they could shoot one cat, they could do it again.
“It is not fair on animals to be locked up. I realise when I reported it that the chance of the person getting caught was very slim.
“But I just don’t want anybody else to go through this.”
Cumbria Police have also condemned the attack. An investigation is underway to trace the gunman responsible.
A spokesman said: “This is a despicable incident that has led to the death of a much-loved family pet.
“I would urge anyone with information to contact Cockermouth police.”
Anyone with information about the shooting should contact police on 0845 33 00 247 or call Crimestoppers on 0800 555111.

Now I know which cat it was, and it was a lovely cat too.  The family had two cats and this was the one I’d see out the most, usually sunning itself on the doorstep.  What a bloody disgrace.

At Preston County Court yesterday, His Lordship Deputy Judge Howarth was told that Miss McKaskie, a company director, had recently moved to the village.
Mr Cameron found her unconscious in the field. She could remember little of the incident.
The cows, which had calves with them, may have been scared by her pet dog, Preston County Court was told. Cows with calves can be unpredictable, posing a risk to members of the public crossing a field, said Christopher Purchas QC.

Under common law, he said, farmers are legally obliged to warn people of the danger.

Jesus H Christ on a bike.
OK, I’m from a farming family and I have had to do a runner from many feisty cows with young calves (up to a fortnight old is the most dangerous) so I know from first hand experience, but are people really that naive?  It would seem so.

A police investigation has been launched after a cat was shot through the head with an air gun.

The cat was found dead on Monday last week in the Ghyllbank area of Little Broughton, near Cockermouth, apparently shot between the eyes with an air pellet.

It had been discarded behind a neighbour’s shed.

A police spokesman said: “This is a despicable incident that has led to the death of a much loved family pet.

“I would urge anyone with information to contact Cockermouth police.”

Anyone with information about the shooting should contact police on 0845 3300247 or ring Crimestoppers on 0800 555111.

This is pretty much ‘round the corner from me.  I drive up Ghyll Bank every day.  I know by sight most of the cats on that road and now some cunt has killed one.  It’s horrid enough when some speeding bastard runs one down but to deliberately set out to kill a family pet is vile.  I know there are plenty of wankers that get all prissy about their precious gardens being shat in, but here’s the thing.  Get over it.  The twat over the road from me is obsessive about his garden.  Him and his fat ugly wife (and fat ugly child) are always out there pointing at stuff, digging things up or whatever.  And it still looks shit.  One of the neighbours had a lovely grey tom cat (died recently sadly.  Natural causes) it was of high amusement to me to see auld Leo either coming to or from the tossers garden with his paper tucked under his arm having had a big shite in his petunias.  Sometimes Leo would shit in my garden, that’s what you get for having a bloody great big litter tray looking patch in yer garden.
Hmm. Getting off topic.  As I always say when something like this comes to light, this reflects badly on firearms owners as a whole.  This behaviour doesn’t typify gun owners but in the minds of the public we are all tainted by it and will suffer from legislation aimed at this kind of thuggery.  The bastard that did this should have his rifle shoved up his arse, stock butt first.  And then we should kill him.

The landlord of a Carlisle pub has been sent to prison for three years for keeping a loaded sawn-off shotgun beside his bed.
Michael John Charlton, 44, who until his arrest in March was licensee of the Golden Lion in Botchergate, kept the gun in his bedroom because he was frightened of intruders after a masked gang nearly killed him when they burst into his home six years ago.
He also had an imitation pistol, which fired blanks, in a holster on his bedpost.

On the face of it, this seems a bit harsh to me.  Clearly I don’t know this blokes background, could be some kind of shadowy underworld scumbag for all I know.  However what we do know is that ‘society’ failed to protect him in the past and he sought to take responsibility for his own security.  Not unreasonably.  Especially when he has received threats.  It’s no good saying to report these threats, the police won’t and can’t provide ‘round the clock protection for everyone.  The front line end of security must be the individual and this case just reminds us that the criminal justice system is extremely good at punishing those who help themselves.

Finally Judge Peter Hughes QC seems to be an ignorant fool.

after hearing how Charlton bought the handgun over the internet, the judge issued a warning.
“Such firms have a responsibility to ensure that illegal weapons can’t be acquired in that way, and it is a matter of concern that more has not been done to limit that trade,” the judge said.

A blank firing handgun is not an illegal weapon.  Sales have been restricted since the Betamax Act came into force on October 1st 2007 but possesion of same within your property is not prohibited and they are certainly not ‘illegal weapons’.  Unless you use them as a club I suppose.  Tit.

Now that’s out of the way on to the current goings on.  The argument goes that because premature babies of below 24 weeks have survived due to improved medical practices that we should reduce the limit.  What?  So when medicine was not so clever it was moral, but now it isn’t?  What kind of bullshit argument is that?  We’ll ignore for now that many of the survivors (and not all prems survive at that age) grow up with severe difficulties, even if we assume they all survive and are fine the fact that medical science has worked wonders does surely not change the validity of life.
Either it is right to abort a feotus or it is not, that it can be grown on in vitro should not be a factor.  Very few (if any) prem births would survive anywhere near the 24 week boundary without the amazing technology we have now.  If we did not have the technology would this mean that abortion up to 30+ weeks would be valid?  No.  Then why should an advance mean a change in the rules.

I believe that the technological argument is merely being used as an excuse for anti-abortionists to completely ban abortion by bites.  Some day it will be possible to grow a feotus completely in-vitro, will abortion be completely abolished along with all contraception?

A MAN has gone on trial accused of breaking firearms laws by grabbing a high powered rifle from three men shooting foxes near his home.

Jason Hoyle, 41, was accused of possessing the bolt action rifle without a licence after he took it from the men during a midnight row last September.

He claims he was entitled to take the gun because he was afraid that he could have been hurt by the men shooting on land near his home at Mallerstang near Kirkby Stephen.

But the prosecution at Carlisle Crown Court say he had no right to behave as he did because the man in charge of the gun did have a licence and was allowed to shoot there.

Hoyle, of Carr House, Mallerstang, has pleaded not guilty to possessing the rifle and ammunition and affray.

In evidence yesterday farmer’s son Richard Halliday, 21, a former gamekeeper with a diploma in game and wildlife management, said he and his younger brother Anthony and Slovakian farm worker David Cernak were shooting rabbits and foxes when the door of their Land Rover Discovery was suddenly opened and Hoyle reached in and grabbed the loaded rifle.

Mr Halliday said Hoyle started kicking the Discovery and pointing the gun inside it.

He also reached into the car and grabbed his mobile, the court was told.

Mr Halliday said. “I felt very threatened.”

Prosecuting counsel David Murphy said Hoyle claimed the “defence of necessity”, saying he had no choice but to take the gun from the men for his own safety

“But the fact that he may have been annoyed by these three young lads does not give him the right to take the weapon from them, to kick the vehicle they were in or to prevent them from calling the police,” he said.

The trial continues.