Pets ban for woman who cooked cat

From the archive, first published Monday 23rd Jul 2001.

A woman who cooked her pet cat in a microwave oven after she was bitten by one of its fleas escaped jail today.

Nadine Trewin, 31, had admitted cruelly ill-treating female tabby cat Sasha at her home in Adelaide Close, Langley Green, Crawley, on March 23 last year.

Today Crawley magistrates sentenced her to a two-year community rehabilitation order and banned her from keeping animals for five years.

After the hearing the RSPCA slammed the five-year ban as "far too lenient".

Spokeswoman Claire Kennet said: "We feel she should have received a lifetime ban because the act was deliberate."

Trewin had changed her plea to admit cruelty during a trial at Horsham Magistrates Court last month.

The court heard that Trewin, who had drunk seven cans of lager and almost two bottles of wine, became angry with the cat when she was bitten by the flea.

Trewin had claimed the cat jumped into the microwave before the door accidentally slammed shut, activating the oven.

She said the cat had cooked for less than a minute, but then the animal failed to move so she tipped it out of the oven from the kitchen window.

She later buried it in the back garden.

Two days later Trewin told her friend Stacey Passmore that she had killed the six-year-old cat.

Miss Passmore was so upset she decided to contact the RSPCA, which prosecuted Trewin.

Paul Luttman, defending, read a letter from Trewin to the court in which she said: "I have always had strong feelings of love for animals. I have never intentionally harmed them."

Archive Home