One evening Mrs. Natalia saw a cat roaming the streets. She took him in and three months later was charged with theft. Although the cat is happily returned to its owner, the woman still faces jail.
According to the biznes.interia.pl portal, one evening Mrs. Natalia Kozdrowska spent the evening in one of the restaurants in the center of ลwidnica, Poland. As she was leaving the premises, she noticed a stray cat.
She wanted to save the cat, she was accused of theft
The woman claims that she did not want to steal the cat, but to help it. She asked the restaurant staff if she knew who the animal belonged to, and when she learned that it didn’t belong to anyone, she decided to take it because she felt sorry for it.
– I just wanted to save him, because let’s face it, a lone animal at a busy intersection after 10 p.m. is not an everyday sight. Later I wanted to find the owner to return the cat – says Natalia Kozdrowska, quoted by the portal biznes.interia.pl.
The next day, Mrs. Natalia tried several times to call the number on the cat’s collar, but to no avail. She also called the shelter. However, after three days, the cat ran away.
– A cat like a cat, an ordinary gray roofer, I tried to help, but his instinct turned out to be stronger and ran away. I thought the case was closed; I had even forgotten about this cat. And here, after 3 months, the police come to my house and say that I will go to the police station because I am accused of stealing a cat – says Ms. Natalia, quoted by the biznes.interia.pl portal.
The police intervened
As it turned out later, the owner of the cat reported the theft to the police, although he had not returned home for a long time. The police, after viewing the surveillance recordings of the restaurant and after registering the car, joined Ms. Natalia. Subsequently, her house was searched, as well as the house of her ex-husband and her mother.
Currently, Mrs. Natalia is threatened with imprisonment, because taking a cat has been classified as a crime.
Moreover, the cat was valued by its owner and the police at 1,000 PLN (225 dollars), as it was considered a purebred cat. In fact, he is not at all, because he has no pedigree. As Graลผyna Kolczyลska, president of the Polish Association of Felinology, asserts, there is no such thing as a “purebred cat without a pedigree”.
โ Either the cat is purebred and has a pedigree, or it is an ordinary cat that looks a bit like a purebred cat. In Polish legislation, animals are treated as objects. This means that such a cat has no value, only sentimental value for the owner – says Graลผyna Kolczyลska, quoted by biznes.interia.pl.
The case can no longer be withdrawn
The animal has already been found and is now in the care of its rightful owner. The search operation was organized by Ms. Natalia after being visited by the police. She then handed the cat over to restaurant staff and asked them to return it to its owner. Despite good intentions, she is still threatened with imprisonment, and she will have to prove her innocence in court.
– It is an outdoor cat, there is no ban on letting a cat loose in Poland. It happened that he did not come back for several days, but he always came back until this lady took him away. I think she did it on purpose, she wanted to steal it. But all I wanted was for the cat to come home, so I don’t care about dragging him to court. Only I cannot withdraw the case, because it no longer depends on me, it comes from the police – explained the owner of the cat.
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