Drunken Thug Stabs Kitten

Gardaí are searching for a drunken thug who, unprovoked, stabbed a kitten to the horror of its owner.

Witness have told gardaí officers how a highly intoxicated man in his 30s picked up the young kitten, named Fifi, and without reason brutally stabbed her with a knife, before throwing her against a side wall of a house.

The attack happened on Sunday afternoon on Hartstonge Street in Limerick. The man, who was accompanied by another male, is said to have stumbled off to the pub following the incident, laughing and joking.

The cat's owner rushed the kitten to the Treaty Vetinary Clinic in Thomondgate, where it died a short time after.

The kitten had been found as a stray by its owner while on holiday in Sligo, and had lived with its owner for only three weeks.

The has been described by animal workers in the region as one of the worst atrocities they have every come across, while Manager of the Limerick Animal Welfare Sanctuary Jodie Hayward is said to have been "disgusted" by the attack.

Behavioural scientists have been known to link extreme acts of animal cruelty to violent tendancies towards other people, and Gardaí officers believed to be presently investigating the incident closely.

(DW/JM)