A 20-year-old Graig-Y-Rhacca man who abused and killed a kitten has been jailed for 16 weeks.
Joel White, of Longfellow Gardens, was sent to a young offender institution by Cardiff magistrates after strangling the ten-week-old kitten and putting it in a freezer.
He had denied causing unnecessary suffering but was convicted of animal cruelty at Cardiff Magistrates’ Court.
White’s girlfriend Joanne Bettridge, 42, who owned the kitten called Pepsi, told the court: “He snapped my kitten’s neck in front of me – he just wrung Pepsi’s neck.”
Ms Bettridge said she saw him throw the kitten against the curtain.
She said: “The claws were digging into the curtains. Then he put the kitten into the lampshade to see if it could do any tricks, then it fell down to the floor.
“There was hardly any movement, I thought his back was broken, he was crawling across the floor. Joel picked him up and I was crying my eyeballs out.
“Joel picked him up and wrapped him up in a pillow case and took him out of the room and put him into the freezer.”
After the trial, RSPCA inspector Nicola Johnson said: “Treating animals in this way is completely unacceptable and will not be tolerated. We are very happy with the sentence today and others should take notice – you will go to prison if you behave like this towards animals.”
White was also disqualified from owning or keeping an animal for ten years.
Amended December 28 to read Graig-Y-Rhacca instead of Machen.
