Woman spared jail after drowning pet cats in the toilet

A woman who caused her cats to drown by pushing their faces down the toilet has been spared jail.

Abbi Mann, 36, called police to claim her pets had been poisoned.

But when officers and the RSPCA investigated in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, they found the bodies of the cats, Bob and Max, dumped in the living room.

Warning: This article contains graphic pictures that some may find upsetting.

Mann later confessed to pushing their faces into the water in July last year but denied killing them.

However, the mum was found guilty of killing the animals in an inappropriate and inhumane manner after a trial and, on Monday, was sentenced to six-and-a-half months in jail, suspended for one year.

Sentencing Mann, District Judge Andrew Davison said: ‘It was a dreadful offence on two poor innocent, little cats. It is a sickening and cruel offence and they were drowned not by being tied in a sack and thrown in a river but they have died in your hands which is most sinister.’

RSPCA inspector Rachel Leafe said it was a ‘truly shocking case’.

She said Mann appeared to be ‘drunk’ when she called police a number of times.

She added: ‘During the calls she told the call handlers that her cats had been poisoned before saying she’d pushed one of their faces into the water.

‘The cats were said to have wet fur and there were puddles of water on the floor.

‘When I attended the cats’ bodies were still there and there was fur around the toilet and sink basins.

‘It’s difficult to think about the fear and suffering these cats must have endured in their final moments.’

The prosecution told the jury how Mann, of Chesterfield, killed the cats with her ‘bare hands’ in a ‘cruel act’.

Mann told the court she had found the animals dead outside her home but vets for both the prosecution and defence concluded they died from drowning.

A third cat, found alive in the house, was given to the RSPCA to rehome.