Burglars who beheaded cat get three years

TWO burglars who beheaded a cat and cooked a live mouse in a microwave were jailed for three years each yesterday.

Steven Browitt and Andrew Maloney used a blunt axe to behead Greta, a blind 19-year-old tortoiseshell cat, during a break-in in Wigan, Greater Manchester, last August.

They left her severed head on a living room coffee table for owner David Byrne to find when he returned home.

Browitt, aged 35, and Maloney, aged 26, both from Wigan, killed Mr Byrne’s pet mouse Snowy by putting it in the microwave along with some vegetables.

The pair, who also ransacked the house, broke windows and smeared food around the kitchen, admitted burglary with intent to cause criminal damage at an earlier hearing.

They were each sentenced to three years imprisonment when they appeared at Bolton Crown Court yesterday.

Judge Gillian Ruaux said: “This was a wicked and malicious crime in which you showed a callous indifference to the suffering of the victim’s animals and the suffering of the victim himself.

“The only view I can take is that Mr Byrne had been singled out for this attention. I don’t know why.”

The court was told that Browitt and Maloney had been drinking heavily when they decided to break into Mr Byrne’s house, in the Scholes area of Wigan, at 11.45pm on August 11 last year.

The pair had known Mr Byrne for around 18 months but have never explained why they targeted him.

Mr Byrne, 48, who lived alone, was at a friend’s house when the break-in took place.

Browitt and Maloney broke in through a rear window and vandalised the house before killing the animals. They were accompanied by two teenage girls, but one of the girls left in disgust when one of the men held the cat’s severed head aloft.

After leaving Mr Byrne’s house, they went to the house where he was sleeping and goaded him.

Browitt and Maloney both claimed they were too drunk to remember who killed the animals but accepted equal responsibility.