Lower Hopton cat shooter was ‘evil’

When Suzanne Partner’s cat, Kirby, came home with a lump behind his ear she thought it might be a cyst.

She was shocked when her vet told her it was an air rifle pellet that had been lodged there.

She said: “I think it’s evil. I can’t understand what drives someone to do something so disgustingly cruel.

“I don’t know what goes through these people’s minds when they shoot an innocent animal.”

Miss Partner, who lives at Woodbottom, Lower Hopton, with her partner Lance Cutmore, has had Kirby for seven years.

She said: “We have been in Mirfield for two-and-a-half years it’s a delight where we live. We absolutely adore living here so it’s upsetting that this has happened.”

Miss Partner took Kirby to Donaldson’s Vets in Queen Street, Mirfield, on November 11 and was told the pellet could not be removed.

“If the pellet had hit him half a centimetre closer to his head it would have killed him,” she said. “He is a very lucky cat.”

Elizabeth Rademovic, receptionist at Donaldson’s, had her own cat shot several years ago, but said such incidents were rare.

“Sometimes you wonder if the person shooting has missed and they were firing at something else or whether it deliberate, but you just don’t know,” she said.

Miss Partner is worried about letting Kirby outside now.

“I used to worry about letting him out at night because of foxes,” she said.

“Now it’s like I don’t want to let him out in the day because he might get shot.”