Taffy could not be saved due to an injury to his neck

A BELOVED ginger cat has died after being shot in the neck while sunbathing on a balcony in Queen’s Crescent.

Owners Eileen and John Evans were horrified to find their pet cat Taffy bleeding on their balcony in Weedington Road when they returned home from a funeral in Ireland last month.

Ms Evans, a former publican of the old Lion and Lamb pub in Euston, told the New Journal: “Nellie, one of our other cats, came out to greet us and my husband said to me ‘Taffy is on the balcony sunbathing himself’.

“I said ‘that’s not like Taffy. He’s usually the first one at the door when he hears my voice’. I went down to the balcony where he was lying and his mouth and face was covered in blood. “I screamed. My husband came running out. I said something’s wrong with Taffy.”

They rushed 10-year-old Taffy to a pet hospital in Barnet where he spent a night in an incubator as his temperature had dropped.

The hospital identified that Taffy’s trachea had been “perforated with a pellet” and he was transferred to the PDSA in Hendon.

John and Eileen Evans

The PDSA said he had been shot between the neck and spine with a “suspected air rifle”, and advised that because he was so badly injured, Taffy was unlikely to pull through.

He was put down and has been cremated. Ms Evans said she will be buried with his ashes, which are kept in a small wooden coffin.

She said: “I was traumatised. I didn’t know if I was coming or going. I still am. “I bought Taffy from a pet shop in Queen’s Crescent when he was just six weeks old. He was a great cat, good as gold. There was no trouble with him. He wasn’t out fighting with other cats. He wasn’t causing any hassle to anybody. He’d come to everybody for a cuddle.”

Ms Evans added: “Taffy used to sleep beside me every night and wouldn’t have anybody else there. In the morning if he was awake and I wasn’t he would stroke my cheek to wake me up to let me know that he wanted food.”

A x-ray reveals the scale  of Taffy’s injury

He particularly loved eating prawns.

“If you didn’t have the prawns he’d sit there looking at you. And we had to cut them up into small pieces over the last few years because his teeth were missing,” Ms Evans said. “I spent a bloody fortune on prawns,” added Mr Evans, who said the shooting was a crazy incident.

The Metropolitan Police said: “Police received a report that a cat had been found injured in Weedington Road. The informant suspected the injury had been caused deliberately. “There has been no arrest. Anyone with information that may assist police is asked to call 101 ref 2483/27apr.”

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