A woman who was caught on CCTV dumping a cat in a wheelie bin has been charged with causing unnecessary suffering to the animal.
Mary Bale, 45, has also been charged with failing to provide the cat with a suitable environment, contrary to the 2006 Animal Welfare Act, an RSPCA spokesman said.
Bank worker Ms Bale, of Coventry, will appear before magistrates in the city on October 19 to answer the charges.
Footage of Ms Bale throwing the four-year-old tabby, named Lola, into the bin sparked outrage and made international headlines, with some animal lovers calling for her death on social networking site Facebook.
It also led to an investigation by the RSPCA, which interviewed Ms Bale and sent a file on the case for review by its prosecutions department. (PA)
Thief snoozing in burgled home
A Malaysian family was shocked to return home to find their house ransacked and a thief snoozing on the couch with his haul.
The burglar remained fast asleep surrounded by watches and jewellery worth 10,000 ringgit (€2,460) as the family returned to their house in the northern state of Penang but the man managed to escape when police arrived. He was arrested later by police nearby after a chase.
“They were shocked to find the living room in a mess and a car belonging to the suspect parked in front of the house,” Georgetown district police chief Gan Kong Meng was quoted as saying by The Star newspaper.
“When his wife went up the upper floor to check the bedrooms, she was surprised to find a stranger taking a nap in her son’s room,” he said, adding that the family immediately alerted the police.
Mr Gan told the New Straits Times newspaper that the 42-year-old thief tested positive for drugs and had 14 previous convictions for criminal and drug-related cases. (AFP)
9,000 civil servants earn more than PM
More than 9,000 employees working in the public sector in Britain are paid more than the Prime Minister, it was disclosed yesterday.
An investigation by BBC1’s Panorama and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism suggested the numbers earning more than David Cameron’s £142,500-a-year are significantly higher than previously thought.
The findings by the programme – to be screened yesterday evening – will heighten the controversy already raging over comparative pay levels in the public and private sectors.
Based on the responses to more than 2,400 Freedom of Information requests to public bodies, they show that 38,000 were paid over £100,000 while 1,000 received over £200,000.
They include GPs, teachers, police chiefs, council officers and senior civil servants, as well as senior managers in the BBC itself.
The highest earners in central Government were the outgoing Chief of the Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, on £288,700, NHS chief executive officer David Nicholson on £278,800 and the Office of Fair Trading chief executive John Fingleton on £277,500. (PA)
‘Spiked’ apples left in horses’ field
British police are investigating after apples “spiked” with pins, screws and nails were left in a field full of horses.
At least 15 of the apples are thought to have been planted in the field off Whiteway Lane, Rottingdean, East Sussex, with dressmaker pins and screws up to two inches long poking out of them. Some of the fruit had already been half-eaten by the animals when they were discovered on Saturday morning.
Their owners now face an anxious wait to see if any of the horses have been harmed, as it could take more than 48 hours before it is known if any of the nine horses in the field have internal injuries. (PA)
Missing treasures found in PM’s office
More than 600 ancient artefacts smuggled out of Iraq, recovered and lost again have been found among kitchen supplies stored at the Iraqi Prime Minister’s office.
The 638 items include pieces of jewellery, bronze figurines and cylindrical seals from the world’s most ancient civilisations that were looted from the Iraqi National Museum in Baghdad after the 2003 invasion.
After their recovery, the US military delivered them last year to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s office, where they were forgotten.
The artefacts, packed in sealed boxes, were misplaced because of poor coordination between the Iraqi government ministries in charge of recovering and handling archaeological treasures, said Tourism and Antiquities Minister Qahtan al-Jabouri. (PA)
Drug plantationin Rhino cage
A rhinoceros enclosure at Hellbrunn zoo in western Austria turns out to have served a more lucrative purpose: as a cannabis plantation, the zoo revealed yesterday.
A caretaker at the zoo was able to grow over 30 marijuana plants in the enclosure, unbeknownst to anyone else, the zoo’s director told the Austria Press Agency. The small plantation was in an area of the rhinoceros’s cage that was closed to the public and to which the caretaker had exclusive access.
The zoo found out about its employee’s side business when narcotics officers turned up in early September, after having been tipped off by one of the planter’s clients.
The 59-year-old long-standing zoo employee has been sacked and the plants removed, the zoo said. (AFP)