Woman who microwaved kitten for attacking pet goldfish jailed for 'horrendous cruelty'

A woman who killed her kitten by cooking it in her microwave has been jailed for the "horrendous" act of cruelty.

Laura Cunliffe thought the four-month-old female puss had attacked her goldfish Barnsley, so set her microwave to five minutes and shut it in.

She then arranged for black and white kitty Mowgli to be buried after she died a slow and painful death.

Cunliffe was jailed for 14 months after admitting causing unnecessary suffering to an animal at Barnsley Magistrates' Court.

The court heard the woman, from Barnsley, South Yorkshire, took Mowgli out after one minute, having realised what she'd done, but she died shortly after, the BBC reports.

Her solicitor Alan Greaves said Cunliffe had a history of mental illness and had been sectioned several times.

District Judge John Foster added: "This was an act of utterly horrendous cruelty on your part on an animal that, as far as I could see, had come to trust you and rely on you."

A court heard previously the kitten was in a distressed state when she was taken out the microwave.

RSPCA prosecutor Brian Orsborn said: "The animal could not get its breath and died about 90 minutes later."

Mr Orsborn added that Cunliffe disclosed what she had done three days later when she was at Barnsley Hospital.

After the hearing, Lynsey Harris, the deputy chief inspector for the RSPCA, said in the 13 years she has been in the job she had never dealt with a case like it before.

She said: "It is a particularly horrendous case because the period of suffering for the kitten would have been awful.

"The kitten was about four-months-old and the exposure to the radiation in the microwave would have cooked the animal's internal organs and that will have been pretty horrendous.

"It is a horrific case in the fact the death of the cat would have been prolonged and it is unimaginable what it would have gone through, taking some time to die.

"Our main aim is to get her banned from keeping animals so there is no risk of any other animals she may come in to contact with suffering."

Cunliffe was also banned from keeping animals for life.

-The Mirror