“Saw him split in half”

A French court has found national rail operator SNCF guilty of negligence after a departing train ran over a cat hiding on the track.
– We saw him split in half, says owner Georgia.

The death occurred in January this year at the Montparnasse station in Paris where the cat Neko escaped from its travel cage. The cat disappeared under a high-speed train carrying 800 passengers that was preparing to leave Paris for Bordeaux. After 20 minutes of trying to persuade the staff to save the cat, the train departed and killed the cat.

– We saw him split in half. They told us it wasn’t their problem, that it was just a cat and that we should have kept it on a leash, owner Georgia and her 15-year-old daughter Melaina told animal rights group 30 Million Friends at the time.

The incident attracted a lot of attention in France and Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said he was “shocked” by the outcome.

SNCF offered the cat’s owner a free ticket to Bordeaux as compensation, but the animal rights group sued the train company for “gross abuse and cruelty leading to the death of an animal” – an offense that carries a fine of up to €75,000 and five years in prison.

Now a court has fined SNCF 1,000 euros for negligence, but does not consider the animal’s death to have been deliberately caused. Prosecutors had called for the train operator to be fully cleared of all charges.

t4-general