Man blasts '˜scum' who poisoned pet cat

A well-known local photographer has urged the public to report incidents of animal cruelty to police after 'murdering scum' poisoned his two-year-old cat.
By The Newsroom
Published 23rd Jul 2018, 16:15 BST
Updated 23rd Jul 2018, 16:19 BST
Photographer Kevin McAuley with his cat O'Malley which was poisoned.Photographer Kevin McAuley with his cat O'Malley which was poisoned.
Photographer Kevin McAuley with his cat O'Malley which was poisoned.

Ballycastle man Kevin McAuley spoke out after a vet confirmed that his pet O’Malley had been poisoned after eating a toxic substance which had been wrapped in ham.

“I first of all thought the cat was having a heart attack as it couldn’t breathe or stand but when I phoned the vet, he said that couldn’t be the case in a cat which was so young. He told me to bring the cat over but O’Malley died en route,” said Kevin.

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“The vet checked O’Malley over and said that he had been poisoned. Since then so many people have contacted me to say that similar things have happened to their pets, and not just in the Ballycastle area.

“I have contacted the police about this incident and would urge others to do the same because if the police don’t know, they can’t do anything to stop it or to catch the scum who did it.

“What is also worrying is the fact that a person who could do this to an animal could be capable of doing it to a human being. And it doesn’t bear thinking about what could happen if a child picked up a piece of deliberately poisoned ham and ate it.

“There would be no way back for that child, just like there was no way back for O’Malley, even if I had noticed anything unusual about him even a few days earlier. The vet said it would have made no difference. The people who did this are beyond being members of the human race.”