The Beast Of Sydenham

My studio is in Lower Sydenham, Greg was telling last night about this "Street Panther" around the area and I found this on the Guardian News website:

Residents of the blossom-filled streets of Sydenham were still shaking last night as a father of three told how he had been mauled by a black cat the size of a labrador.

Police armed with Taser stun guns sealed off roads in south-east London, school gates were locked and teachers warned pupils to keep away from wooded areas after Tony Holder escaped with a cuff around the face from the big cat.

Mr Holder, 36, was calling in his tabby, KitKat, at 2.15am yesterday when he spotted his pet being savaged by a 5ft-long animal.

The black, panther-like creature then sprang at him in his back garden.

"It had pinned the cat down, but when it saw me it let the cat go and jumped on my chest, knocking me to the ground," he said.

"I could see these huge teeth and the whites of its eyes just inches from my face. It was snarling and growling and I really believed it was trying to do some serious damage.

"I tried to get it off but I couldn't move it, it was heavier than me.

"I was scared. I really thought my life was in danger but all I was worried about was my family. It was an absolute nightmare."

In the gloom, Mr Holder's 11-year-old daughter Ashleigh, watched from a bedroom window. I just saw my dad flying backwards and struggling with something," she said. "I was really scared."

As Mr Holder was being treated for scratches by ambulance staff, he saw the beast saunter past again.

Armed police arrived, sealed off the streets around Mr Holder's home, loaded their stun guns with tranquillisers and searched for it with flashlights.

The animal gave them the slip, but as tabloid reporters scoured the streets in safari gear brandishing butterfly nets, the Guardian picked up the scent of something big across the railway line by Catling Close.

Billy Rich, 44, was looking out of his window at 5.30am when he saw a black creature leap across the road and bound south towards Mayow Park.

"I see a ... thing," he said.

"What's he supposed to have seen?" asked his ex-wife.

"The beast of Sydenham," your correspondent explained.

"The only beast of Sydenham is him," she replied, prodding a finger at Mr Rich.

"On the news they said it was as big as a Doberman, but it wasn't," insisted Mr Rich. "It was big and black and I thought, fucking hell, what was that?

"It definitely wasn't a pussy cat. It was too big. The way it jumped, you could tell it wasn't a dog. It definitely wasn't a fox, but it can't be a panther - where would a panther come from in Sydenham?"

The British Big Cat Society estimates there could be 100 big cats roaming the land. A £5,000 reward has been offered for the Beast of Burford, a large black cat spotted near the Oxfordshire town.

Scotland Yard confirmed the beast of Sydenham was the second serious sighting of a large black cat in south-east London in the past three years.

Officers responded to reports of a large black cat in Oxleas Wood in Shooters Hill, south London, in 2002 but failed to trace the animal.

Danny Bamping, the founder of the society, warned that if the cat was a melanistic leopard or a black panther, it could kill. "They can be very, very dangerous," he said. "There have been incidents in North America where joggers have been killed by these creatures."

A Scotland Yard spokesman confirmed that officers had visited schools to warn them about the big cat. "A police officer who attended the incident said he thought he saw what looked like a black labrador," the spokesman said.

One pupil at Sydenham high school for girls said the gates had been locked at lunchtime and students had been told to stay away from wooded areas and dark alleyways.

She said they had also been instructed to make a loud noise wherever they went to scare off the beast.

Parents said they would be keeping their children indoors. "The garden is secure but I wouldn't let my little boy Morgan go out and play today," said Kelly Wood.

"He's 19 months. I think he's quite an edible size."