Croquet mallets and raw eggs were thrown at a politician’s house after he accidentally killed a neighbour’s pet.
Tobias Ellwood, MP for Bournemouth East, was driving near his £1 million home in the countryside when he allegedly ran over a Bengal cat earlier this year.
He said he did not even realise he had hit anything at the time.
When he eventually found out, he apologised and offered to buy the family a new pet, according to The Sun.
A pedigree Bengal cat can cost between £800 and £2,000.
A family member quoted by the paper said: ‘We just want to mourn our cat. We want nothing to do with Tobias Ellwood.’
The Conservative Party MP’s house was later ‘egged by locals’, according to villagers who said the politician is usually well-liked.
Dorset Police said officers have ‘identified and spoken to the parties’ who came to a ‘community resolution’ but have not publicly released their names.
Metro.co.uk has contacted Mr Ellwood for comment.
Drivers who hit a dog in the road are legally required to report it to the police within 24 hours.
This is because dogs are covered by the 1988 Road Traffic Act as a working animal.
The legislation also includes goats, cattle, horses, mules, sheep, pigs and donkeys.
People who hit these animals are supposed to stay with them until the police or the RSPCA arrive. Those who don’t face fines up to £5,000.
Cats are not covered by this law, as they are not working animals, but activists have long been campaigning for this to change.
More than 67,000 people have signed a petition to make it law to drivers have to ‘do the decent thing and contact the owner’.
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