A FAMILY of five have been left shocked and upset after their cat was hit in the eye with a large metal pellet.

Two-year-old Grover was forced to have his eye removed after the incident.

Mum-of-three Nat Scott says she believes the heavy object may have been fired from a catapult.

Mrs Scott, who lives with her family in the High Street, Lytchett Matravers, said: “The last time we saw Grover was at 3pm last Thursday before I did the school run.

“He was sitting outside the house, which is where he probably got hit.

My husband saw him again at 8pm, and said he’d been beaten up, but as soon as I saw him I knew it was worse than that. His eye was extremely swollen and black, and there was a lot of fresh blood around it.”

Grover, who has been with the family since he was a kitten, had the operation to remove his eye the following day, and Mrs Scott said it has left six-year-old Freya and four-year-old Jasmine upset.

“We were hoping to hide it from them, but because we needed to bring him in, they did see him and it was quite shocking for them,” she said.

“It was certainly a direct trauma. We have heard reports of kids in the area with catapults.

“It does make me angry that there will be parents who don’t know where their children are or what they’re doing and that they could have done this horrible thing.”

Mrs Scott, who also has a four-month-old daughter, Robyn, said she has alerted others.

“What if it had been one of the children walking out of the door?” she said.

“If this going in the paper causes one parent to turn round to their children and say, ‘Do you know anything about this?’ it will be worth it.

“I hope it frightens whoever did this into never doing something like it again.”

Dorset Police have conducted inquiries in the area as the incident is classed as criminal damage but no one has been arrested.