The young man who hurled a cat over a fence and into a wall has come forward today, telling Nine News, “I shouldn’t have done it and I’m sorry.”
On Thursday, RSPCA Queensland shared with media footage of a Queensland man, now revealed to be 19-year-old Samuel Conroy, picking up a cat and throwing it into his neighbour’s yard to the laughter and jeers of his mates. The footage was released in order to compel the public to come forward with info about the man’s identity.
Yesterday, they found the bloke, and today, Conroy decided to “own up to his actions” and speak on the record about the incident, which occurred at his home in Ipswich about two weeks ago. The story goes that he was filmed without his knowledge by one of three of his mates present at the time as he attempted to get rid of his flatmate’s mother’s cat.
While he admits that he’s “at fault“, he said he and his flatmates don’t want the cat as a pet, and that it was left in the house when the owner of the property, his flatmate’s mum, moved to Melbourne: “The fact is no one in our household likes cats.”
I was living there with my mate and it was his mother’s cat. It was always scratching the screens – that wasn’t caught on the video… It was a case of me letting my anger take over, rather than using my brain.
I tried getting it out of our yard and onto the roof, but missed the distance.
What most outraged the public was the uncontrollable laughter of Conroy and his mates immediately afterward deciding the appropriate punishment for a cat tapping on their laptop screens was to hurl it into a building, but Conroy claims he was actually “laughing at me being recorded“.
He says the cat came back ten minutes later, and was “100 percent fine“. “I started feeling sorry for it, so I took it inside, fed it and gave it some water.”
RSPCA Queensland – who are currently taking care of the cat – said charges against Conroy are due to be laid next week. Maximum penalties for animal cruelty in Queensland are three years in prison, or a fine of $220K.
Conroy says a fine would be “well deserved“.
