LONDON - A woman who killed her boyfriend’s cat by putting it in a clothes washing machine after an argument was given a four-month suspended prison sentence on Monday.

Diane Hannon, from north Wales, was looking after the white fluffy cat called Paws last summer while her friend Duncan Carthy was away.

She put the six-year-old cat, which was deaf, into the washing machine before switching it on. Paws died from a heart attack and suffered loss of hair and scalding.

Inspector Kevin Patin of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) said in a statement: “This is the worst act of deliberate cruelty I have ever seen.”

Hannon, who suffered from depression, told a Welsh court that she and Carthy had argued before he went away, causing her to feel wounded and angry.

Hannon, who admitted last December to causing unnecessary suffering to the animal, was banned from owning animals for life.