A 60-YEAR-OLD Stroud man is facing jail after he stabbed his wife's cat to death and threw its body over a fence.

Andrew Beese, of Bisley Old Road, pleaded guilty at Gloucester Magistrates’ court on Friday, May 25, to causing unnecessary suffering to the pet on December 29 last year.

RSPCA prosecutor Nick Sutton said: "This is an allegation of animal cruelty.

"It is alleged and accepted that the defendant killed his wife's cat, which at the time was nursing four kittens, by stabbing it in the abdomen in front of several people."

He said the stab wound had severed the cat's aorta - the main artery to the heart.

Its body was then discarded over a garden fence.

"Here you have a brutal attack on a defenceless animal," added Mr Sutton.

Officers found the cat's body after launching a search with RSPCA. Although Beese admitted the offence, he said he did not remember stabbing the cat.

Mr Sutton said: "He told police he had strangled it.

"It was a pre-meditated attack and done out of spite.

"He killed the cat and it died from very obvious stab wounds. It really does not come more serious than this."

Steve Woodward, defending, said: "He has pleaded guilty today at the earliest opportunity. He accepts the evidence but still has no recollection of stabbing the animal.

"That day he was involved in a domestic situation with his ex-partner and had been drinking heavily. He accepts what he did and is prepared to accept the consequences."

Chairman of the bench Dr Adam Rockey asked the probation service to prepare a report – adding that he would not rule out a custodial sentence.

Beese will appear for sentencing at Cheltenham Magistrates’ Court on June 15.