Eimear Rabbitt

But you generally don't see, I wouldn't, you don't generally don't see, but basically this couple, they're a retired couple.

Patrick Connolly and his wife, Bernie.

He was previously working as a lollipop man.

So they seem to be having issues.

This is what they claimed anyway with their neighbour.

Their neighbour owned a cat called Gracie.

Lovely looking cat, by the way.

And basically had said that they asked...

neighbor to keep the cash in their property as it was constantly going into their garden and basically defecating and that like the they were minding grandkids the grandkids are picking up the poo and all this kind of thing and as anyone that has a cat will know like cats are as i'm constantly told that dogs are better than cats cats don't listen to like cats aren't going to just stay out of a garden you know so so basically what happened was um the cash the neighbor who

the owner of the cat went to Carrickmacross Garda station and basically said, my cat has been stolen by my neighbour.

The elderly couple denied it at first and then CCTV was produced where they were seen leaving their property in a white bag, coming back empty handed.

So then it can be seen basically that I think the cat had been in the owner's backyard and had disappeared and then

ended up in the house of the elderly couple and they trapped it, they put it in a bag, they brought it to a nearby lake and left the cat tied up in a bag for three days.

Like it is really, as much as there's kind of like discussion around it about cats and stuff, it's really awful that this poor animal was left in a bag for three days.

So basically the cat, the neighbor, so I suppose you don't hear, because it's a court report, you only hear certain things, but the neighbor found the cat.

So I don't know whether, you know, they were just looking or whether they heard that it might be at the lake, but they found the cat in the bag after three days.

The cat was in really poor condition, but has survived.

And, and,

And initially they said the woman, so the Bernie Connolly in particular, said that she didn't have anything to do with it.

So they were kind of charged with theft of a cat as well as animal cruelty offences.