United Kingdom: Family furious after pet cat Harry was killed 'by a police car before officers disposed of the body without telling them'

UNITED KINGDOM -- A father has been left furious after police ran over his daughter’s cat – and then simply told the family that their pet had been ‘disposed of’.

Harry the ginger tom was hit by a police car near Tony Hunt’s home. But instead of tracking down the owner and explaining what had happened, the officers involved knocked on a neighbour’s door and asked for a black bin bag.

A witness then described seeing them ‘scooping Harry up and placing him in the bag in the boot of the car’.

Mr Hunt spent two days putting up ‘lost cat’ posters in his area before finding out what had happened from a local teenager. Incredibly, when he contacted police, officers coldly told him Harry had been ‘disposed of’.

Yesterday Mr Hunt, from Normanton, Derby, broke down as he described how a neighbour had witnessed the police car running over his cat.

The incident is now being investigated by Derbyshire Police’s Professional Standards Department, he said.

Mr Hunt, 42, said he had told five-year-old daughter Lily that her beloved pet had gone to heaven, but could not bring himself to tell her why.

He accused police of a ‘lack of humanity’ and demanded a face-to-face apology from the two officers involved – one of whom was a WPC.

The restaurant manager, who lives with partner Zoe Price, 30, their daughter Lily and one-year-old son Thomas, said: ‘What has happened is absolutely disgusting.

‘I couldn’t believe what I was hearing when a young lad called to tell me he had seen the police run over Harry. I called 101 straight away and eventually spoke to a desk sergeant, who confirmed Harry had been hit and said he’d been “disposed of”.

‘There was no compassion whatsoever. He didn’t go into details as to how Harry had been “disposed of” and I didn’t want to know, to be honest. For all I know, they could have tossed him straight in the bin.’

Mr Hunt was informed about the three-year-old cat’s demise by Ali Nisar, who lives a street away. The 16-year-old saw the car coming ‘at speed’ down the road with its blue lights flashing last Sunday.

He said: ‘The cat was in the middle of the road but the car went straight over it. They didn’t seem to brake, but I don’t know how they could not have seen it.’

Mr Nisar added: ‘Two days later I saw Tony’s poster and recognised the picture of the cat. I rang him to tell him that the police had killed his cat. I was gobsmacked that they hadn’t already informed him.’

Mr Hunt said Harry was microchipped and his body could have been returned to the family for cremation if the police had taken him to a vet or the RSPCA to be scanned. He added: ‘If it hadn’t been for my neighbour witnessing what happened, we’d still be searching for him now.’

A spokesman for Derbyshire Police said it was ‘aware of the allegations’, adding: ‘We’re in the process of trying to identify the officers who are allegedly involved to get their account of what happened.’

(Daily Mail - April 26th 2015)