A woman has told of her horror after her "little baby" cat was killed after becoming trapped in a snare.
Timea and Phil McKessy, from Vulcan Village, located in between Newton-Le-Willows and Warrington, let their one-year-old cat Rocksy out as normal on Sunday, October 30. They bought the young tabby cat when she was a kitten, and she regularly went outside during the day but would "always come home".
On Sunday evening when Rocksy did not return, Timea, 33, began to get concerned and thought something wasn't right. It wasn't until the next day that she received a call from her vet to say her beloved cat was "in a bad way".
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Timea told The ECHO : "She's always been an outdoor cat and would always come home each night. If it was ever raining she would come back home and jump through the window.
"So when she didn't come home on Sunday night I became suspicious. I convinced myself that because it was raining she was maybe hiding under something and would come back later.
"She's microchipped so they [the vets] must have scanned her and when I was in work the next day I had a call from our vet to say somebody had brought her in and she was in a really bad way. They said she was caught in a wire snare trap and I had no idea what it was."
A builder working in a back garden near Vulcan Park playground found Rocksy trapped in the snare and rushed her to the vets. Before Timea was able to leave work, she received another call from the vets to say she had died.
Timea and Phil said they were "in bits" following the death of their pet and wanted to raise awareness to other cat owners to be aware of snare traps. Self-locking snare traps, a wire loop that continues to tighten by a ratchet action, are illegal for use in the UK but free-running snares can be set lawfully.
In 2021 Peta, along with other animal protection groups, wrote an open letter to the former Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, pleading with him to ban the "barbaric" devices.
Timea said: "I thought these traps were already banned, and I was shocked to find out some of them aren't. I wouldn't even dream of doing something like this to an animal.
"I know some people are like 'its just a cat' but we don't have any children and Rocksy and our other cat and dog are like our babies. They are a part of out family and it's just so cruel this has happened.
"Also, this trap was placed right next to a children's park, I know they would kill a child but they could easily seriously injure one."
The couple have contacted Merseyside Police and the RSPCA who are investigating the incident.
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