Catnapped feline comes home

Phil Doyle

Sophie Coker and her family are shocked at the ordeal her ex-boyfriend put her cat through.

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It started with a kiss.

Hairdressing student Sophie Coker, 16, met labourer Ryan Alexander Frost, 18, through a friend; sparks flew and the pair were together, on and off, for a few months. Sophie says she dumped Ryan in December ("I guess I didn't like him that much") and by February he was going out with another girl.

On Valentine's Day, Sophie's cat went missing from her mother's home in Stanmore Bay, north of Auckland.

Last week Ryan admitted that he and his new girlfriend had stolen the friendly eight-year-old tabby. Police have charged both teens with theft. Court records show neither has entered a plea; however, Ryan insists he has pleaded guilty. The girlfriend could not be contacted, and it is understood she and Ryan have broken up.

The pair are due back in North Shore District Court on Wednesday.

Ryan has confirmed the story that Sophie's family told the Sunday Star-Times, but he and his family declined to comment.

In the early hours of Valentine's Day morning, Ryan and Michelle, with a third friend in the back seat, turned up at Sophie's mother's house.

They grabbed Toffee from the road outside the house, drove almost 9km north to Hatfields Beach, and left the cat there.

"It's a huge distance," says Sophie's mother. "And then he was dumped. Just dumped on the beach."

Five weeks went by. No one knows how Toffee survived during this time. Sophie's mother says, "he talks a lot... If only we could understand what cats were saying!"

Back in Stanmore Bay the family were frantically searching their neighbourhood. "I had a feeling that we were going to get him back," Sophie says.

The mystery started to unravel when Sophie received an MSN message from a friend in London, hinting that there was something more sinister behind the cat's disappearance.

When the truth eventually came out, Sophie says, "I was really, really angry and upset. I was just thinking, how could they do this? [Ryan] ended up telling me everything.

"He felt really bad."

Hoping that Toffee could still be found, Sophie's mother went to the local newspaper. A small story was published on March 19, and a few days later, the family had a call from a resthome in Hatfield's Beach.

For about a week, a tabby had been hanging around the resthome kitchen and scrounging from the compost bin. A nurse, who had been feeding the cat, called Sophie's family.

"All I could hear was this `miaaaow' and then the phone went dead and then I was like, oh my God!" says Sophie.

Toffee was fine a bit more clingy than usual, and skinny, but not the mangy, matted cat the family had been expecting. Sophie says she still worries about him whenever she leaves the house and likes to keep him inside.

And although this story has a happy ending, the family are shocked that their cat was put through such an ordeal.

They have written a victim impact report to be read out at court, marvelling at the lack of empathy the teens showed, and Sophie's father says he would quite like to pick Ryan up and dump him somewhere.

"It's just unbelievable, eh, it just blows me away. I'd like to deal with it in one way but you can't do that, unfortunately ..."

Sophie is still baffled at how everything could go so badly wrong.

"How much he hurt my family ... I don't understand how he could do this to all of us."

- © Fairfax NZ News