PET owners have been left ‘distraught’ after a spate of cat killings in Colne, the RSPCA said.

Inspectors said at least five animals have died in the last month after being mauled by dogs in the town.

One disgusted owner has set up her own support group for cat-lovers to share information about the attacks and Pendle MP Andrew Stephenson has also got involved.

RSPCA inspector Natalie Taylor said she believed the moggies were being targeted deliberately.

Rebecca Horsfield, 28, said she felt ‘helpless’ after her cat, Smudge, was set upon by a man with a lurcher at the rear of Boundary Mill stores.

Miss Horsfield, of Leach Street, said: “He would go out all the time and always came home but one morning we noticed he hadn’t came back.

“It was my first day in a new job and I was rushing so I thought no more of it. Then when I came home he still wasn’t there and I got a phone call off a security guard I know from Boundary Mill.

“She told me she saw a man walking a lurcher dog go round the bushes with a torch looking for cats. Then he set the dog on Smudge and it killed him.

“It makes me sick. It’s not even kids doing it, its a grown man in his 30s.”

Miss Horsfield, a personal assistant, said the incident, at around 7am on February 6, had left her and her nine-year-old son, Ethan, devastated.

Environmental Health picked Smudge’s body up from the car park where the dog owner had dumped it, and the RSPCA also had kept the animal as evidence before returning it to Miss Horsfield, who has now erected a memorial in her garden.

Her Cats in Colne Facebook page, where pet owners discuss problem areas and report missing cats, has attracted more than 200 members.

Ms Taylor, an RSPCA inspector said there had been four cats attacked in a similar incident in Harrison Drive, Colne.

She said: “The RSPCA is working closely with the dog warden and the police.

“It is an offence to set a dog onto a cat. It is classed as an animal fight and causes unnecessary suffering and can hold a prison sentence of up to six months.”

In a letter to Miss Horsfield, Mr Stephenson said: “I have now contacted both the RSPCA and the police regarding both this matter and the wider problem of dog owners allowing their animals to deliberately kill cats in the Colne area.”

A Lancashire police spokesman said it would be up to the RSPCA to prosecute in this case.