Woman threw cat at neighbour’s door because ‘it kept coming into her garden’

This is the shocking moment a kitten was thrown 25 feet across a road by a furious neighbour.

CCTV cameras caught April Hawes, 38, throwing eight-month-old Shadow at her neighbours door, shouting ‘I’m going to knock her out’.

She was furious that the cat kept coming into her garden.

The terrified cat landed on the pavement suffering soft tissue damage.

Hawes appeared at King’s Lynn magistrates, in Norfolk, where she admitted picking up the cat and flinging it at her neighbour’s home.

The court heard she had entered a guilty plea to causing suffering to a protected animal on March 1 at an earlier hearing.

Video footage showed Hawes screaming that she hoped the owners Kevin Yarham, 33, and his partner Sophie Baker, 26, could see it on CCTV.

Kevin, a shop assistant, from Dereham, Norfolk said: ‘April Hawes threw Shadow at the door not once but twice.

‘She picked the cat up by the scruff of the neck and threw him violently twice. You can hear her shouting whilst she was doing it’.

The court heard Hawes was annoyed that the cats kept coming into her home.

But in an interview Hawes had said she did not wish to cause harm and was remorseful, the court was told.

Kevin added: ‘Shadow was scenting near her house. Cats do what they do, they are animals that explore and they’re free roaming.

‘She just picked him up and threw him as he was scenting – I have no idea why she done this.’

Kevin said Shadow suffered soft tissue damage and is now ‘very nervous around women’.

Magistrates sentenced Hawes to a 12-month community order with 30 days’ rehabilitation activity.

She was also ordered to pay £85 in costs and a victim surcharge of £85.

Kevin said: ‘I would describe the sentence as an insult to all animal owners, it’s a disgrace and far too soft.

‘It’s an insult to all the people who suffer PTSD, this is no excuse.’