Search on for beast amid ‘cheetah’ fear
ARMED police were last night hunting a Billionaires Row for a big cat that “looks like a cheetah”.
The beast was spotted prowling around a garden by two women having dinner.
They saw what they thought was a cat’s face in a storage area at around 8pm on Monday and tried to scare it away by stamping their feet.
One woman said: “It came out and at that point we realised it’s not a domestic cat. It looked like a cheetah, but smaller.
“It was scary. It kind of kept walking but it didn’t come too close.”
Up to 20 police cars were said to have joined the hunt with helicopters circulating the area near Hampstead, north London, for at least two hours.
The cat, which is not thought to be dangerous, is still on the loose. It is believed it may be an escaped serval, a wild cat that is illegal to keep as a pet, but this has not been confirmed.
A Metropolitan Police spokesperson said: “Police were called to reports of a large cat seen in a garden. An animal expert also attended and visually assessed the cat. It was concluded the animal was not thought to be dangerous or a threat to the public.
“The cat made off from the garden. Enquiries continue to locate it.”
Nirmal Sethia, 78, who owns luxury tea brand Newby Teas, said around 20 armed officers with guns and Tasers tracked the cat down to the back of his garden. He said: “The cat was hidden behind in the bushes and made its way along the back of my garden.
“If you look at the picture, it’s a cheetah. There are crazy people.
“Somebody who’s influential or has money, decides to have a cheetah and keeps it in the house.
“If it was a cheetah or a Savannah, it terrorised everybody and could have been anything.
“If it was a cheetah, have hurt somebody.”
He added there was an ‘incident’ in the neighbourhood last year with a neighbour’s “designer” Savannah cat, which is a cross between a serval and a domestic cat. it could