Woman who dumped cat in wheelie bin defends her actions

A woman caught on camera dropping a cat into its owners' wheelie bin has said she didn't know what all the fuss was about. A vitriolic campaign launched against Mary Bale on the social networking site Facebook was removed yesterday. Posters had called for her death, described her as "evil" and a "psycho" and demanded her sacking from her job as a customer services assistant with the Royal Bank of Scotland. Police had described some of the material as "inflammatory and offensive".

Bale, 45, who is the subject of an RSPCA investigation and is said to live just half a mile from the scene of the cat's 15-hour incarceration in Coventry, said that she did "not deserve to be hated" for her moment of madness. People were over-reacting, she said. Bale was identified after Stephanie and Darryl Andrews-Mann put up footage on the web of their four-year-old pet Lola's treatment taped by their own security CCTV on Saturday night. They discovered her in the bin after hearing her cries the following morning.



"I really don't see what everyone is getting so excited about. It's just a cat," Bale said. "I was walking home from work and saw this cat wander out in front of me. I was playing with it, stroking it and listening to it purr as it stood on a garden wall. It was very friendly. I don't know what came over me, but I suddenly thought it would be funny to put it in the wheelie bin, which was right beside me. I did it as a joke because I thought it would be funny. I never thought it would be trapped. I expected it to wriggle out of the bin."

Bale added: "People are reading too much into things. I've no feelings about cats one way or the other. I don't keep pets myself, but I have no problem with people who do. To think this video is being seen around the world is unbelievable. I'm a very private person and don't want to upset any members of my family. I don't know what my relatives will think, but to be honest I think everyone's overreacting a bit. OK, I shouldn't have done it, but it's just a cat at the end of the day. I don't think I deserve to be hated by people all over the world, it was just a split second of madness."