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Vigilante fear after cat dumper is identified
Mary Bale receives death threats after dropping cat in bin 'for a joke'
Britain's public enemy number one - well, at least among cats and cat lovers - has said the public are over-reacting to the CCTV footage of her dumping a live cat in a wheelie bin. She says she did it as a joke and added: "It's only a cat".
The woman, whose actions have brought her death threats thanks to YouTube, was identified yesterday as Mary Bale, a 45-year-old bank worker living in Coventry. The cat she picked up by the scruff of its neck and dropped in the bin was a four-year-old tabby called Lola.
Lola survived her ordeal, but only after being trapped for 15 hours in the container. Her owners, Daryll and Stephanie Mann, eventually found her thanks to the CCTV camera they had installed to keep an eye on their car.
Bale told the Sun newspaper: "I really don't see what everyone is getting so excited about - it's just a cat."
She said she noticed the cat as she was walking home from work and - as the CCTV footage shows - began stroking it. "I don't know what came over me, but I suddenly thought it would be funny to put it in the wheelie bin which was right beside me.
"I did it as a joke because I thought it would be funny. I never thought it would be trapped. I expected it to wriggle free."
She admitted that she "shouldn't have done it" but did not think she deserved the hatred now coming at her down the internet and - according to some reports - from a crowd gathered outside her terraced home.
Stephanie Mann, 24, reunited with Lola, has appealed for calm and urged people not to take "matters into their own hands". She said she only posted the footage on YouTube because she wanted to find out who the mystery woman was.
"Now that the police know who she is, I think people should leave it to them and the RSPCA and not take matters into their own hands.
"Whatever she has done, I don't like her, but I don't want her to get hurt."
The police, who say Bale has not committed a criminal offence, are monitoring the situation at her home. The RSPCA are investigating. ·
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When people are at the bottom of the pile they sometimes look for those whom they consider to be even lower or weaker and then abuse them. It causes violence to children amongst other things. I recall in Southern Spain long ago some pubs would keep a rabbit on the bar so that customers could put it on the floor and give it a kick to make themselves feel better. Such is sad reality.
How did she think it could wriggle out of a tall slippery bin with lid. Maybe she should get in one herself and try it. Just as well it was found before the wagon came and emptied it or it would have met a very dreadful end