Only a real animal would drown a cat

I know cats can be annoying. I have occasionally heard my neighbours mumbling about my Suu popping over the hedge into their gardens and I know exactly what she’s been doing. I’ve offered to nip round and pick it up from their lawns and thank goodness none of them has a vegetable patch where she could be digging up their kale and cabbage. But how could Richard Giles, a gardener near Sherborne in Dorset, be so cruel as to have killed Ruby, his neighbour Shirley Gear-Evans’ beloved rescue cat, for messing up his leeks and carrots? He drowned her in a water butt. The RSPCA has brought a prosecution for causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal and he may face six months in jail. Six months inside over summer? That’ll muck up his precious vegetable patch and no mistake.