A cat lover was horrified to find her pet had been beheaded and gutted outside her home on Halloween.

Neighbours of Lynn Griffith, 51, of Paddock Road, South Ruislip, found a black and white cat with its head missing and its chest slashed open lying outside a home just meters from her front door.

They identified it as Mrs Griffith’s 11-year-old cat Tibbs, who she heard screeching the night before on October 30 at around 7pm.

“I was out in the back garden and I heard this horrifying noise. At the time I thought it was just fighting with another cat, I now believe it was being decapitated, it was obviously in a lot of pain,” Mrs Griffith said.

Mrs Griffith was working in the out of hours office for Hillingdon Council's social services at the Civic Centre in Uxbridge when Tibbs’s body was discovered.

“One of the girls across the road found it by the hedge of our next-door neighbour’s garden and they came to talk to my son because they thought it was Tibbs. They told him it didn’t have a head,” she said.

Mrs Griffith’s son Reece, 18, told the neighbours that he couldn’t bear to check on the cat because he would be sick.

“When I came home my next-door neighbour had already moved it because it was so disturbing,” she said.

Mrs Griffith has not seen Tibbs since and is certain that the headless cat was hers. “I think it may have been some sort of Halloween prank.

“My son has been looking online and apparently this has happened elsewhere. A week before a woman had reported to the council an act of the same thing where a cat with its head missing was found in her front garden in Hillingdon.

“I just think it’s too much of a coincidence that this happened at the same time. I know that it may well have been some sort of accident or a fox could have killed it and gone off with the head, but I’ve been living in my house for 19 years and I’ve never known a fox to do that.

“Tibbs had a slash all the way down the front. I just keep hearing the noise. If you could imagine somebody screaming in pain, that is what it sounded like,” she said.

Mrs Griffith has reported the incident to the police and the RSPCA. The animal welfare charity had no record of another decapitated cat in Hillingdon, but said that may be because it was not reported to them, so they would urge anyone with information to get in touch.

The charity were aware of another black and white cat which was discovered dead without a tail on a driveway in Long Drive, South Ruislip on November 1, not far from Mrs Griffith’s street.

Inspector Phil Norman from the RSPCA said: “Although these cats both suffered unusual injuries there is probably a perfectly rational explanation.

“For example, it’s not uncommon for cats to crawl into cars if they are frightened by fireworks and get injured when the engine starts up. Small animals can also be decapitated during a traffic accident or even after death by wildlife.

“It’s very upsetting for owners to lose their cats in such circumstances but we want to reassure pet owners that thankfully acts of deliberate violence against animals are rare.

“We are keeping an open mind about what happened to Tibbs and the other cat so if anyone has any information about the deaths of either of these cats please contact me on 0300 1238018.”