A leading animal charity has collected a 100,000 signature petition for a change in law on airgun ownership just weeks after two sickening attacks on cats in the Burton area left them partially blinded.
Cats Protection has handed the large collection of names to 10 Downing Street as part of a campaign to get laws surrounding the ownership of airguns in line with those in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
The petition comes after two cats lost eyes near Burton within a month of each other.
On March 6, a cat called Poppy was left in agony and with a bloody face in Midway.
Her owner, Jackie Towne told the Burton Mail that vets had advised that the cat be put to sleep after being hit by a ball bearing, fired from a catapult, leaving her eye hanging out and jaw fractured.
The injured jaw meant Poppy may not have been able to eat, so the family were advised to have her put to sleep. However she made a miraculous recovery and is now on the mend.
Then, on Easter Sunday, April 1, a ginger cat called Hamish was found by owners in Church Gresley having been hit in his left eye by a pellet suspected to have been fired from an air weapon.
Both incidents were labelled by PCSO John Beard, who was investigating from the safer neighbourhood team in Swadlincote, 'particularly nasty' and 'upsetting.'
Along with the petition from Cats Protection, organisers have also written to the Home Office calling for airgun licensing. The petition was delivered to Downing Street on May 9 by the chairman of the charity, Linda Upson.
Jacqui Cuff, Cats Protection's head of advocacy and government relations, said: "We know that 90 per cent of reported airgun attacks on cats happen in England and Wales, and it's no coincidence that these are the parts of the country where licencing of airguns is not in place.
"Laws on airguns in Scotland and Northern Ireland are much tighter, and we believe this should apply for the whole of the United Kingdom.
"Cats who are shot with airguns can suffer horrific and often fatal injuries. We have heard stories of cats losing eyes, limbs and being left with life-changing injuries as a result of such attacks.
"Often owners are unaware of why their cat is injured until a veterinary x-ray shows airgun pellets embedded into their flesh.
"In the wrong hands, airguns are deadly weapons, and updating the laws relating to them is well overdue in England and Wales. Our petition of 100,000 people shows that a huge number of people agree that action must be taken urgently."
According to the charity, in 2017 164 cats across the country were reported in the press as having been shot with an airgun.
Gun ownership has been restricted in Northern Ireland since 2004, with anyone who owns, buys or uses an air weapon in Ulster now required to have a licence. In Scotland, air weapons became licensed at the start of 2017.
