Woman, 23, killed kitten by cooking it in a microwave for five minutes 'because it attacked her pet goldfish'

UNITED KINGDOM -- A woman killed her kitten by cooking it in a microwave for five minutes, a court has heard.

Unemployed Laura Cunliffe, 23, from Hoyland near Barnsley, is said to have put four-month-old Mowgli in the microwave after it attacked her pet goldfish.

 

Cunliffe then set the controls to cook for five minutes - Barnsley Magistrates were told.

Remarkably, the black and white female was alive when Cunliffe finally removed it from the machine - but she died shortly afterwards.

Cunliffe pleaded guilty of causing unnecessary suffering to an animal and was granted unconditional bail. She will be sentenced on March 13.

Brian Orsborn, prosecuting for the RSPCA, told the court that Cunliffe had had the kitten since it was a few weeks old.

He said: 'The kitten was in a distressed state when Miss Cunliffe took it out of the oven. She took the animals to a relative’s home.

'The kitten could not get its breath and died about ninety minutes later. Miss Cunliffe made arrangements for the body of the kitten to be taken away to be buried.

The dead animal and its burnt paws.

'The RSPCA became involved and was able to trace the man who carried out the burial.'

Mr Orsborn said that Cunliffe disclosed what she had done three days later when she was at Barnsley Hospital.

She said the kitten had attacked her goldfish.

After the hearing Lynsey Harris, RSPCA deputy chief inspector said: 'In the 13 years I have been in the job I have never dealt with a case like this before.

'It is particularly horrendous because of the period of suffering for the kitten which would have been awful.'

She said that the exposure to the radiation in the microwave would have cooked the animal’s internal organs.

She said: 'It is an horrific case in the fact that the death of the cat would have been prolonged and it is unimaginable what it would have gone through taking some time to die.



The kitten died around 90 minutes after
 it was put in the microwave by Cunliffe

'The main reason the RSPCA  took this case in order to achieve disqualifications in order to protect animals and prevent further suffer in the future.'

Alan Greaves, defending said Cunliffe’s problems included psychosis and depression.

He said Cunliffe had been sectioned under mental health legislation several times.

(Daily Mail - Feb 21, 2014)