A man who ran his ex-girlfriend’s cat through a tumble drier and posted the video on YouTube for fun has been jailed—because there’s nothing funny about torturing a cat on the Internet.
Allan Staughton, 23, of Huntington, England, was found guilty of causing unnecessary suffering to his ex-girlfriend’s cat Princess and has been barred from ever owning a pet—be it cat, rat, or snake. What’s more, he’ll spend the next 56 days in jail, and his girlfriend broke up with him on the spot.
Staughton had initially told investigators that he did the deed because he thought that it would be “funny, and the video’s title backs that up.” Since deleted from YouTube, the June 14 clip was uploaded under the name “You must see this—it will crack you up.”
(The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, RSPCA, has re-hosted the video on Live Leak.)
After seeing the video, a Huntington court decided that Staughton’s conclusion was highly inaccurate. Princess suffered a broken tooth and injured her tongue and was left in what veterinarian Helen Dennis told the court was a “severely traumatized” state by the whole ordeal.
That was enough to convince Huntington magistrates to jail Staughton and bar him from pet ownership for life. The girlfriend left—in June—of her own accord.
As for Princess, the RSPCA was able to close her saga out on a high note.
“We have now found a loving new home for Princess,” a spokeswoman said.
Photo via HugeDrax/Twitter