SADIE the cat is grumpy. She leaps off the sofa and knocks an ornament from a shelf, swishing her tail in anger because she has not been out for more than a week.

Her owner, Angela Watson, said: "I just daren't let her out. I daren't let any of them out. They are my babies and I don't want anything to happen to them."

Last week, Mrs Watson, of Cockfield, near Barnard Castle, County Durham, lost her favourite cat.

Kitty, one of her troop of seven cats and two dogs, went out for ten minutes and did not come back.

When she was found dumped on the street a week later she was having fits and was barely alive, and painfully emaciated. In fact, she was so ill that she had to be put down.

Mrs Watson believes the cat had been kidnapped, tortured and poisoned, the latest victim of a killer who has preyed on the animals of neighbour Pauline Bell for more than five years.

Mrs Watson said: "I don't have any children and my animals are my family. Everyone knew Kitty - she used to sit outside the house and people made a fuss of her as they went past. I think people are really shocked about what has happened.

"Kitty would not have disappeared on her own - she never went far. Someone took her."

Over the road, mother-of-three Mrs Bell said she had scientific proof that ten cats, five rabbits and a guinea pig had been murdered with the slug poison, Aldicarp, which is no longer commercially available.

The poison leads to a painful death for the animals and can also be dangerous to humans.

PC Brendan Coll, of Barnard Castle police, believes the culprits are keen gardeners.

Last week, he received an anonymous call from an elderly man warning police to stop wasting their time investigating the incident, although it is not clear if he was the culprit.

PC Coll said: "The poison is nasty stuff. In this case, it is used fairly indiscriminately and it is worrying that a child could come into contact with it."

Mrs Bell said she was nervous about her 18-month-old daughter, Nicola, playing in the garden.

Her other daughters, Gemma and Rachel, have been devastated by the constant losses of their family pets.

Other animals have been shot at with airguns, stones have been thrown and both women believe their cats have been handled roughly or kicked.

One gardener in the area said: "Cats can be a nuisance when they come into your garden repeatedly.

"But there are so many ways of dealing with them, like squirting water, or putting down harmless pellets. I think these people are sick."

Mrs Watson said: "My animals are so loved - I have dedicated years to loving them and taking care of them, and then someone thinks they have the right to take all that away from me. It's heartbreaking. How they can harm a defenceless, loving animal?"

* Anyone with information is asked to contact Barnard Castle police, on (01833) 637328.