Redlingfield Parish Clerk Janet Norman-Philips was devastated this week when she found out that her cat White Toes, who came home badly injured on Saturday evening, had been shot by someone with a shotgun.
“White Toes, adopted us about five years ago, he just turned up and never left. We think he was somewhere between 8 and 10 years old. He was a regular visitor to lots of people in the in the village.
“We last saw him when he had his breakfast last Wednesday morning but he didn’t come home that evening for supper. By Friday we were really worried about him and I had neighbours’ look in their sheds and outhouses in case he was trapped somewhere.
“He came home on Saturday evening, very unwell. We thought that he might have been clipped by a car.
“It turned out that he had been shot. He was riddled with shotgun pellets – some fifty in total – in this eye, in his head and neck, several in his lungs, in his back and legs. Most were in his face head and neck – so his was shot head-on by the look of it.
“According to the vet, Peter Wilson, at Debenham vets, he would have been in absolute agony and there so many pellets and so much damage had been done that there was no option but to put him to sleep. Given the state he was in Peter was very surprised that he had managed to drag himself home.
“I can’t imagine what kind of evil person would do this to a defenceless animal.
“White Toes was never aggressive - once I'd given him his food, I'd have to keep our other three cats away otherwise they would just steal it from him and he let them. All four of them would sit together in the garden, basking in the sun and watching the birds.
“He wasn't even a hunter – since the flooding earlier in the year, all of us around here have had rats coming in to the gardens looking for food – and White Toes would just watch them – he never chased them. Obviously too well fed and disinclined to be bitten.”
Anyone with any information should contact the police. The crime reference number is 37/25906/20 The Suffolk Police phone number is 101 or use the on-line reporting form www.suffolk.police.uk/contact-us/existing-report-update. Information can also be provided anonymously via @CrimeStoppers at https://crimestoppers-uk.org.
White Toes
An x-ray of some of White Toes' injuries