A BRADFORD cat rescuer believes a defenceless cat was mutilated and killed in a barbaric attack by a human.

Paula Thoma dedicates her life to saving cats in need and has spoken of her disgust at the gut-wrenching case she was called to assist with.

When she arrived at the scene, a field near Evelyn Avenue in the Thornbury area of the city, she was faced with the unimaginable scene of horror which “knocked her for six”.

“I see cruelty everyday due to neglect but that is another level,” she said.

Paula said the cat had been left with an awful catalogue of injuries and is sure they were inflicted by a human and not another animal due to the nature of the attack and the way its body was left.

While the RSPCA was called, they did not attend the scene and Paula was told to get in touch with Bradford Council to organise a removal.

She said: “It’s barbaric, it’s horrific. I can’t get it out of my head.

“It’s a little, defenceless cat. Things like this need logging, yes there’s no evidence, there’s no CCTV, but it’s not an animal attack.

“It’s not an animal that’s done this, it’s a human. She had been mutilated.”

The cat wasn’t chipped and rather than asking Bradford Council to remove the body, she took it to a veterinary surgery and is now determined to give the animal the dignity it was deprived of in its final hours.

Paula said: “Bradford is getting worse for cruelty, laws need to be changed and they need to take it seriously.

“People who are doing this are sick individuals.”

And she fears that if someone could do this to an animal, they could go on to do it to another person.

A spokesperson for the RSPCA said: “The RSPCA was called about a dead cat with injuries found in Bradford on Sunday, April 26.

“Our resources are under huge strain at the moment, which means we are responding to emergencies only.

“We must prioritise those living animals most in need.

“We understand the caller must have been very distressed by what she found but unfortunately, with no evidence that the cat had been deliberately killed, no witnesses or CCTV, and given the current crisis, we advised the caller that the best course of action was to ring the council to collect the cat’s body.”

The spokesperson added: “Sadly, it is not unusual for dead cats to be found, and these often show signs of injury, which are usually the result of traffic accidents or predation by other animals after they have died.

“Since the lockdown began our animal rescuers have dealt with 1,016 incidents in West Yorkshire (March 23-April 23).”

Over the years Paula has saved kittens with maggots crawling out their bodies, strays from dog fighters and cats almost fully blind due to untreated illnesses like feline Aids.

Last year, she told the Telegraph & Argus: “ “People want cats to kill the vermin but they don’t want to look after them.

“We see dying kittens everywhere, kittens dead in carrier bags. There’s somebody going round mutilating cats.

“People are letting their cats breed and half these cats won’t even live. They use them as bait.”

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