A drunken man who stabbed to death his wife's cat out of spite during a row has been jailed.
Alcoholic Andrew Beese, 60, used a knife to kill five-year-old cat Koko before throwing the pet's body over his garden fence.
Beese, whose wife was in court to support him, was jailed for 14 weeks by JPs at Cheltenham Magistrates' Court after admitting a charge of causing unnecessary suffering.
The defendant, of Bisley Old Road, Stroud, Gloucestershire, showed no emotion as he was led away to begin his sentence.
His wife, Helen, was not in the courtroom to see her husband jailed as she had been asked to leave by the chairman of the bench, Peter Langman, after repeatedly interrupting as he passed sentence.
As she was escorted out, Mrs Beese told a security guard: "He's a sick man. He is bipolar. I've been trying to get him help for years. I didn't want this. I never wanted to press charges." She added: "My husband is a sick man. It was his illness that made him do what he did and I will say that until the day I die."
Mr Langman said the starting point for this type of offence was an 18-week prison term. "We then have to consider whether the particular set of circumstances aggravate or mitigate against it," he said. "Following the guidelines we can find very little that mitigates that sentence. There has been use of a weapon.
"It was a persistent incident and clearly resulted in the death of an animal which was protected under the Animal Welfare Act. You have pleaded guilty at the first opportunity and we are prepared to reduce that sentence and we are therefore imposing 14 weeks' immediate custody."
Beese was also banned from keeping animals for 20 years. Nick Sutton, prosecuting on behalf of the RSPCA, said the attack was launched last December when the cat, a pixie-bob breed, was nursing four kittens. He said: "The position is that he simply killed this animal as a matter of spite. It is as simple as that."
Magistrates did not order Beese to pay any of the RSPCA's costs. Speaking afterwards, RSPCA inspector Philip Mann said: "Prison sentences are rare in animal cases but in this case it is an appropriate sentence. I certainly put it in the top 10 of worst cases I have dealt with in my career of 21 years."
UK 
