A MAN who killed a cat by putting it into a sack and drowning it in a water butt because he thought it would spread Covid has avoided a jail sentence. Dorset man Richard Giles grabbed hold of tabby cat Ruby after he found her in his kitchen, drowned her and threw her body in a ditch, Weymouth Magistrates Court heard. The court heard the extreme suffering to the cat was caused by 69-year-old Giles on September 19 last year after he said the animal repeatedly ruined his crops and kept coming onto his property in Adber, near Sherborne. Ruby s owner and Giles neighbour, former NHS worker Shirley Gear-Evans, spent two days looking for her pet before she confronted Giles.