£4,000 reward offered after cats are shot in Derbyshire

By Wiktoria Wrzyszcz
Published 22nd Jan 2024, 11:26 BST
Updated 22nd Jan 2024, 12:26 BST
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An animal welfare charity is offering a reward of up to £4,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible for shooting three cats in Derbyshire.

Police received reports that the cats had been shot in the Hillside Road area of Sponden over the weekend. All three victims required treatment, including nine-year-old Ralph, who underwent emergency surgery to have a pellet removed from his abdomen, and 4-year-old Winnie, who has been left paralysed due to life-threatening spinal injuries.

PETA Vice President Elisa Allen said: “It’s imperative that any community faced with cruel and callous acts such as these take measures to find the culprit and bring them to justice. Animal abusers are a danger to everyone: they take their issues out on whoever is available to them – humans or other animals – and must be caught before they act again.”

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A spokesperson for PETA added that the history shows that past incidents involving cruelty to animals regularly appear in the records of serial rapists and murderers. Young killers Mary Bell, Robert Thompson, and Jon Venables, murderers Ian Huntley, Thomas Hamilton (the Dunblane massacre), and Raoul Moat, as well as serial killers Fred West, Dennis Nilsen, and Ian Brady all started by deliberately harming animals.

Derbyshire Police confirmed that no arrests have yet been made so far and appealed to anyone who can provide more information to contact the force on 101 and quoting reference 24*027673.