A distraught woman is warning pet owners to watch out after her cat had to be put down following an air rifle attack.

Jacqueline Coleman's cat Patch crawled home dragging his legs behind him after being struck by three pellets.

She rushed him to the veterinary surgery but staff told her there was a pellet lodged in her pet's spine and he would have to be put down.

Jacqueline, of St Cleres Crescent on Wickford's Wick estate, said people should be made aware that cruel thugs were taking pot-shots at animals.

She said: "I just want to warn people there is someone doing this to defenceless pets in this area.

"It's so horrific and they've basically killed my cat. I'm devastated."

When Patch first came home Jacqueline thought he had been in a road accident. The cat already had a metal pin in his leg from an accident a year ago.

She immediately took him to Cherrydown vets, in Cherrydown West, Wickford. Staff agreed with her initial diagnosis until they took an X-ray.

Jacqueline said: "They found there were two pellets in his legs and one lodged in his spine.

"The vet seemed to think he had been sitting on a fence from looking at his claws so someone must have deliberately taken a pot-shot at him."

Patch's back legs had been paralysed and had to be connected to a catheter. Jacqueline, distraught at seeing her feline friend hooked up to wires and drips, forced herself to make the heartbreaking decision to have him put down.

Wickford police have now promised to investigate what happened.

Jacqueline said: "The person who did this is just a low-life.

"It's got to have been somebody very local who did this because Patch never goes very far away.

"It's so senseless. What if there had been children around? They could have been badly hurt."

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