A mother of three has been found guilty of cooking a friend's cat to death in a microwave in revenge for her boyfriend being reported to police.
Gina Robins, 31, was in the kitchen of her friend's home when she put the 10-week-old kitten in the 770 watt oven after using it to warm up food for her 18-month-old son.
The cat's owner, Sarah Knutton, was sitting in her lounge when she heard a noise "like a crisp packet being popped", followed by a loud "screeching".
She was so horrified by the discovery of her dead pet that she was sick in the sink.
The cat's death in February last year happened just days after an argument between the two women.
Ms Knutton had called the police over an alleged incident outside her house involving Ms Robins' partner.
After the kitten had died, Robins sent Ms Knutton a text message, calling time on their friendship and saying: "Remember the saying 'What goes around comes around?'
"It has started already to bite you in the arse. The cat? Karma."
Regarding the text, Robins told magistrates: "I didn't mean it to come across as harsh as it did. I was just upset that she wanted to end our friendship.
"She gave me an ultimatum to choose between my friendship with her and my partner. I was quite upset.
"They didn't see eye to eye. She didn't like the way he spoke to me."
Robins had denied a charge of causing unnecessary suffering to an animal, claiming that the microwave was accidentally turned on by one of Ms Knutton's other cats after the kitten got inside.
But magistrates in her home town of Torquay, Devon, found her evidence during her day-long trial "far-fetched" and "inconsistent".
Chairman of the bench Liz Klyne told Robins: "We find it implausible that a kitten of 10 weeks of age could climb up on to a work surface and get into a microwave and then another cat closed the door.
"We find you deliberately placed the kitten in the microwave, which ultimately caused its death."
She warned Robins that magistrates would look at all options, including jail, when she is sentenced in December.
Despite breaking down in tears several times while giving evidence, Robins showed no emotion when she was convicted.
The court was told that when the kitten was examined its claws were drawn, suggesting it had attempted to resist what was being done.
Speaking outside court, RSPCA inspector Jim Barr said he was pleased at the result of a "complex case".
"The facts were there to be heard and the verdict went the right way," he said.
"The cat must have been in real distress and stressed out. Its death was the end result of a lot of suffering."
He said it was the second case in the last 18 months in south Devon involving a cat being put in a microwave.
Colin Sherlock, 44, of Newton Abbot, was jailed for 126 days in November last year for his part in the torture of an animal at a house in Teignmouth, which also involved two teenagers.
This reminds me of that deranged Chinese cretin who killed a kitten with her boots until her eyes bugged out and the kitten had this gesture clutching with both tiny paws to her boots as if begging her for mercy. May God show no mercy to those people..
From Dawud ibn `Ali: "If a sheep dies on the shore of the Euphrates I fear lest Allah ask me to account for it on the Day of Resurrection."
and these deranged criminals deliberately torture helpless creatures.. walhi it gives me shivers to think of the amount of cruelty people are capable of toward other human or even more helpless creatures!
Text without context is pretext If your opponent is of choleric temperament, seek to irritate him
This reminds me of that deranged Chinese cretin who killed a kitten with her boots until her eyes bugged out and the kitten had this gesture clutching with both tiny paws to her boots as if begging her for mercy. May God show no mercy to those people..
From Dawud ibn `Ali: "If a sheep dies on the shore of the Euphrates I fear lest Allah ask me to account for it on the Day of Resurrection."
and these deranged criminals deliberately torture helpless creatures.. walhi it gives me shivers to think of the amount of cruelty people are capable of toward other human or even more helpless creatures!
Asalaamu Alaikum,
That's horrible, wow... No doubt Allah will punish such cruel people.
Caliph ‘Omar once saw a man denying a sheep, which he was going to slaughter, a satiating measure of water to drink. He gave the man a beating with his lash and told him: “Go, water it properly at the time of its death, you knave!” [5] (Reported by Ibn Sirin about ‘Omar and recorded in Badae al-Sande.
What's sadder in the world today, is that humans can be more cruel then this to each other.
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