Toby is gradually getting back to his old self, but could yet lose his eyesight.
A pet owner near Gainsborough is distraught after a “vile and cruel act” left his cat with a blood covered face and at risk of losing its eyesight.
As previously reported, a two-year-old tabby called Toby was rushed to Gordon Lochrie Veterinary Surgery in Morton, Gainsborough after dragging himself home with a bullet in his head, although it is not yet known what caused it. It is believed the incident happened near Westminster Close in Morton.
Toby is owned by Mick Edwards, his wife and daughter, who may even consider moving away from the area after this barbaric incident, which was reported to the police and the RSPCA.
The family own three cats – Toby, Daisy and Jasmine – and they knew something was up when Toby’s food hadn’t been touched all day by Tuesday evening.
The family own three cats – Jasmine, Toby and Daisy.
Warning – distressing images below
Mick told Lincolnshire Reporter: “We went outside calling him and to look for him and we had a sleepless night on Tuesday.
“On Wednesday there was a frantic ring at the doorbell from the neighbour who had seen the cat, who had dragged himself back home. I put Toby straight in the car and took him to the vets.
“It was an absolute horror and my partner was breaking down in tears. Toby’s face was in a mess and we initially thought he’d been run over and he was crying.
When Toby arrived at the vets his face was covered in blood. Photo: Gordon Lochrie Veterinary Surgery
“We couldn’t believe it. Who would shoot our family member in such a barbaric way? The x-ray showed a ballbearing like bullet/pellet. Why has someone even got a gun? This is not the done thing here.
Mick said where they live in Morton is normally such a quiet and nice area, so “this is not right”.
He added: “We may even move from the area next year as it is not somewhere I want to be if this can happen. It is uncalled for and it’s put us off big time from what is a nice area.”
Toby’s ear was stitched up and he is now recovering. Photo: Gordon Lochrie Veterinary Surgery
Name and shame
Amanda Lochrie, co-owner at Gordon Lochrie Veterinary Surgery in Morton, previously said she wants whoever is responsible for injuring Toby named and shamed.
She told Lincolnshire Reporter: “We think from the injuries it looks as if someone shot the cat from close quarters from above. It was a malicious attack done with intent. It’s absolutely sickening.
“A black ball-like bullet was pulled out from just behind the cat’s ear. It’s gone in with such force it nearly pushed the cat’s eye out and we don’t know yet if the cat is going to lose its sight.”
This is the bullet that was pulled out from just behind Toby’s ear. Photo: Gordon Lochrie Veterinary Surgery
Fundraising for Toby
Mick initially set up a fundraising page on Just Giving to get a little help and has been surprised at the generous outcome, which currently stands at over £550.
He said it will help pay for the initial treatment and care and for additional stuff they need for Toby.
Mick added that Toby was drugged up and sleeping on Thursday afternoon and that, although he is giving them snuggles and is slowly on the mend, “he’s not out the woods yet”. They won’t know until the swelling goes down what will happen next.
A spokesperson for Lincolnshire Police previously said: “We received a call at 12.32pm on September 4 reporting that a cat had been shot on Westminster Close, Morton. It is believed that this happened on September 3. Anyone with information should call 101 quoting incident 195 of September 4.”
An RSPCA spokesperson said: “We are very concerned to hear about this incident, and ask anyone with information that might help us investigate, to contact our cruelty line on 0300 1234 999.
“Sadly, we do see cases where pet cats are shot and suffer catastrophic injuries, some having to have a leg amputated or even some not making it and dying as a result of their injury. Every year the RSPCA receives almost 1,000 calls to investigate cases and help hundreds of animals that are the defenceless victims of air gun attacks.
The RSPCA added that penalties faced if caught deliberately using an air gun to injure an animal can be up to six months in prison and/or an unlimited fine if found guilty under the Animal Welfare Act.
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Fantasy Island Skegness has crawled into the ongoing caterpillar cat fight between Marks & Spencer and Aldi by ‘cocooning’ the Crazy Caterpillar ride in solidarity with Aldi.
Supermarket chains M&S and Aldi are currently involved in a legal battle after M&S claimed that Aldi’s ‘Cuthbert the Caterpillar’ cake infringes the trademarks of its own ‘Colin the Caterpillar’.
M&S filed a claim against Aldi in the High Court on April 14, and is suing the budget supermarket as well as demanding that Cuthbert is removed from Aldi shelves.
The company claim Cuthbert shares “substantial similarity” with Colin, and they are pledging to “protect” their Caterpillar cake from plagiarism.
Aldi, which introduced their caterpillar confectionary almost thirty years after M&S did theirs, has been posting a series of memes in response to the lawsuit, demanding that we #FreeCuthbert.
Fantasy Island, the theme park in Ingoldmells, joined in the debate with a tongue-in-cheek move, saying they will close the Crazy Caterpillar ride in solidarity with Aldi and to not offend Marks & Spencer.
The resort created a cheeky post on Facebook with #FreeCuthbert on it, truly showing which side of history it wants to be on.
It’s proved a valuable publicity move for the attraction’s social media page, with more than 4,000 ‘reactions’ to the post.
Around 15% of Lincolnshire’s adult population is now fully vaccinated against coronavirus, health bosses have said.
Lincolnshire County Council’s assistant director for public health Andy Fox said the latest figures showed just under 100,000 people had received their second dose of COVID-19 vaccine – 97,984.
Government figures on Thursday showed that officially more than 500,000 doses of vaccine had been handed out in total with 82,659 of those being second jabs – a rise of more than 15,000
Meanwhile 66.6% of the population have had their first dose – more than 425,000.
“We’re really pleased with where we are with the vaccine in Lincolnshire,” said Andy.
“We know that the NHS teams doing the vaccination has been focusing on the second dose recently so we’ve seen that go up from a few percent a few weeks ago to now we’re 15% of the adult population in Lincolnshire are fully vaccinated, which is again, really good to see.”
Of those that have received their second dose, the highest numbers are in the 80-plus age group with 36,500 people, while 17,000 75-79-year-olds are fully vaccinated.
More than 93,000 people took a lateral flow test last week. The number was expected to go down due to schools – which normally do between 40-60,000 tests alone – being shut, however, it is thought to have been balanced out by people ordering new home testing kits.
There is currently no evidence of the Indian variant in Lincolnshire, confirmed Andy Fox, while the Kent variant is now the dominant strain at 90%.
Lincolnshire’s infection rate continues to decrease, reaching 26.5 per 100,000, and now sitting below the England average of 26.8.
Health bosses are not overly concerned by small rises at district level in Lincoln, or by Boston remaining high on the league table of infection rates.
Mr Fox said the general trend continued to be moving downward.
Forensic tests by wildlife investigators have revealed the death of a bird of prey in Crowland may be linked to a criminal poisoning.
Lincolnshire Police have launched an investigation after a Red Kite was found dead on a piece of land in the area, with a member of public reporting it to the authorities.
The bird was sent off for forensic tests through the government wildlife incident investigation scheme, which concluded that indications suggest it had been poisoned.
As a result of this, Lincolnshire Police’s wildlife crime officers, as well as Natural England, the RSPB and the National Wildlife Crime Unit have carried out searches at addresses in the Crowland area.
During these searches under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, items such as banned pesticides were found, which could be linked to the poisoning offence.
Two people have been identified in relation to this and will be spoken to by officers.
Detective Constable Aaron Flint, Officer in the case has said: “Raptor Persecution is one of the UK’s National wildlife crime priorities and is taken very seriously by Lincolnshire Police.
“These offences will always be dealt with expeditiously and robustly. Deliberate killing of birds of prey is an offence which I urge the public to report if they become aware of it.
“I would like to add, that if a bird of prey is found dead and you believe it is suspicious it should be reported to the police immediately to allow an investigation into its death to commence.
“The bird may have been poisoned which poses obvious health and safety concerns if handled. Providing the police with the What3words location would be extremely useful when reporting an incident”.
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