FILE - In this Jan. 23, 2020 record photo, Steve Bouquet leaves Brighton Magistrates Court, southbound eastbound England. The erstwhile information defender who knifed 9 cats to decease successful night-time attacks successful the English seaside metropolis of Brighton was sentenced Friday July 30, 2021, to much than 5 years successful prison. (Gareth Fuller/PA via AP, File)

FILE - In this Jan. 23, 2020 record photo, Steve Bouquet leaves Brighton Magistrates Court, southbound eastbound England. The erstwhile information defender who knifed 9 cats to decease successful night-time attacks successful the English seaside metropolis of Brighton was sentenced Friday July 30, 2021, to much than 5 years successful prison. (Gareth Fuller/PA via AP, File)

LONDON – A erstwhile information defender who knifed 9 cats to decease successful night-time attacks successful the English seaside metropolis of Brighton was sentenced Friday to much than 5 years successful prison.

Steve Bouquet, 54, was convicted of attacking 16 cats, 9 of them fatally, betwixt precocious 2018 and mid-2019 successful Brighton, 50 miles (80 kilometers) southbound of London.

He was caught aft the proprietor of 1 of the dormant cats acceptable up a information camera. Bouquet denied engagement successful the attacks, successful which immoderate feline owners recovered their pets bleeding connected the doorstep. But prosecutors said a photograph of a dormant feline was recovered connected his phone, and a weapon with feline humor and Bouquet’s DNA connected it was recovered during a hunt of his home.

He was recovered blameworthy aft a proceedings of possessing a weapon successful nationalist and 16 counts of transgression harm successful narration to the cats — a transgression that carries a higher condemnation than carnal cruelty.

Owners of immoderate of Bouquet’s feline victims were astatine Hove Crown Court connected Friday to spot him sent to situation for 5 years and 3 months. Judge Jeremy Gold said Bouquet’s behaviour was “cruel, it was sustained and it struck astatine the precise bosom of household life.”

Ad

Jayne Cioffi, a elder authoritative with the Crown Prosecution Service, said “none of america tin comprehend what drove Bouquet to bash this to household pets.”

“This has been a tragic lawsuit for each the owners involved. Not lone did Steve Bouquet inflict horrendous suffering to each of the animals helium attacked, but helium besides caused existent trauma to their owners, galore of whom recovered their beloved pets injured and bleeding,” she said.

Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This worldly whitethorn not beryllium published, broadcast, rewritten oregon redistributed without permission.