The elderly man seen holding an airgun in this CCTV footage had apparently just shot dead a pet cat. Police in Stroud, Gloucestershire, released the images of the man walking down a street in the suburb of Ebley at 9.30am on May 31.
Percy, a British short haired/ragdoll cross, was found wounded and in pain in a front garden and taken to a vet, where a pellet was found in his stomach. Percy’s owner, Melangell Penrhys, who lives near by with her son Morvan, 11, was traced from the cat’s microchip.
The eight-year-old cat had survived a road accident that left him with one eye five years ago, and had just suffered an abscess on his good eye.
Ms Penrhys said she could not understand why someone would shoot her pet. “Percy was a very friendly cat who was well known in the neighbourhood, he would pop in and out of people’s gardens. If someone didn’t like him, I don’t know why they didn’t just shoo him away instead of shooting him.”
She said she had not seen Percy since the night before but did not suspect anything was wrong until she received the call. “I rushed to the vet’s to find Percy in a lot of pain,” she said.
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A vet at the Clockhouse practice in Bowbridge said an x-ray found the cat had been shot, with the pellet penetrating the abdomen. Percy died later that morning. Police say the suspect may have been driving a white car.
‘Sick’ policeman is sacked after being seen at Ascot
A police officer who was spotted by his bosses celebrating a win at Royal Ascot after he had gone off sick has been sacked from Gloucestershire police for gross misconduct.
A disciplinary panel had been told that on two other occasions PC Jonathan Adams had claimed that he was too ill to work but was then seen at the Nottingham racecourse. The panel unanimously concluded that all three allegations were proven.
“We are forced to conclude that PC Adams was not suffering the degree of sickness that he claimed he was,” Alex Lock, the panel’s chairman, said. “It is important that police officers are honest and that public confidence should be upheld.”
Warning over system for recalling faulty products
The “fragmented” system for recalling dangerous products is putting people’s lives at risk, a consumer group has warned.
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Which? has called for urgent changes after concluding that the “overly localised and confusing” system had no single source of information on recalls for consumers. The system used an “ineffective local solution to tackle what is a national problem”, the report said.
It is calling for the establishment of a national body to take control of dangerous situations as they arise and get products removed from homes quickly, as well as creating a single database of information on recalls for consumers “before there is further tragedy or loss of life”. The watchdog had threatened Peterborough trading standards with legal action for failing to force Whirlpool to change its advice to consumers after hundreds of the manufacturer’s tumble dryers caught fire.
Which? also said the government had been slow to respond to reviews into fires caused by unsafe products and was still awaiting the outcome of the Working Group on Product Recall and Safety set up in October last year. Problems had been made worse by trading standards teams losing 56 per cent of their full-time equivalent staff since 2009.
Teenager told ex-girlfriend of his balcony suicide plan
A British teenager on a gap-year trip fell to his death from a 16th-floor flat the day after telling a former girlfriend he planned to jump off a balcony. Kieran Jones, 18, from Thornton-Cleveleys, Lancashire, also left messages on his computer saying that he planned to kill himself. He died of multiple injuries outside his flat in Sydney in January. He was described at an inquest in Preston as “a beautiful boy with a beautiful personality” who had been fighting depression and had self-harmed. The coroner, Richard Taylor, recorded a verdict of suicide.
Actor found after three days trapped in rock pool
A British actor has been taken to hospital after he fell from a waterfall in Thailand and spent three days in a rock pool. Paul Nicholls, 38, who has appeared in EastEnders and Law and Order: UK, was saved when his motorbike was spotted by a villager on Koh Samui island. After police learnt that Nicholls had hired the bike, rescue teams found him under Khun Si falls. He was hypothermic after injuries prevented him from getting out of the water. “I am lucky to be alive,” he told The Sun. “I’ve got a broken leg and I’m missing a kneecap. It needs complete reconstruction.”
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Dinner parties are off the menu as casual takes over
The formality of starched tablecloths, napkins, bread rolls and prawn cocktails is on the way out as casual kitchen suppers with friends replace dinner parties, according to a survey. Sixty-five per cent of people had friends over on average three times a month, suggesting the nation was becoming more sociable. Hosts spent £52 on food on average and £33 on alcohol for their guests each time, the survey, carried out for Anglian Home Improvements, found. One in five people questioned said that a guest had turned up to eat with someone who had not been invited.
Church collapse death
A man has died after an old church collapsed in the Splott area of Cardiff yesterday afternoon. Two people escaped with minor injuries, South Wales Fire and Rescue Service said. Gareth Davies, the service’s area manager, said that firefighters with dogs and a drone were working to recover the body of the man from the building. Reduced services were running on the railway line between Cardiff and Newport, which passes near by.
‘No-one looked for girl’
The parents of a teenager found hanged in school toilets after complaining of being bullied have asked why nobody had looked for her. The inquest into the death of Dagmara Przybysz, 16, in May last year, was told that a different girl was reported missing at Pool Academy, Pool, and support staff were searching for her. The hearing at Cornwall coroner’s court, Truro, continues.
Banker’s photo shame
A former executive director at JP Morgan has pleaded guilty to possessing indecent images of children, some of whom were three years old. Dylan Towns, 45, who is now a carpenter, was arrested for loitering outside a girls’ school in Bournemouth and police found photos at his house. At the town’s crown court he was given a ten-month sentence, suspended for two years.
Viscount out of jail
The viscount who offered £5,000 on Facebook for someone to kill Gina Miller, the Brexit campaigner, has been released on bail pending an appeal against his conviction. At Southwark crown court, Judge Michael Grieve, QC, warned Rhodri Philipps, the 4th Viscount St Davids, that he risked a longer sentence than the 12 weeks he had been given if next month’s appeal failed.
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Bare gnomes banned
A gardener has been told to remove two bare-bottomed garden gnomes from a verge outside his home in case they distract drivers. Laurence Perry, 77, of Wistaston, near Nantwich, received a letter from Cheshire East council giving him a week to move the figures, which light up at night, or risk being billed if the authority had to act. He said that he was “very disappointed”.