A housewife who turned online detective to investigate the cat ‘poisoning’ scandal believes she may have sparked a huge recall of premium foods.
Vicky Winchester, 37, managed to track down the suspected source of a rare cat disease by using Facebook to find other victims.
The mother-of-three took action after her ragdoll kittens Delilah and Darcy fell ill with feline pancytopenia – a rare blood condition that causes the number of blood cells to fall rapidly.
Mrs Winchester, from Swansea, created the Facebook group Pancytopenia in Cats Awareness UK to find bereaved owners and look into why cases of the illness were rising.
Vicky Winchester (pictured with one of her cats Darcey), 37, managed to track down the suspected source of a rare cat disease by using Facebook to find other victims
Within hours the group had hundreds of members – and it now boasts more than 12,000.
After setting up polls to look for links between the affected cats, within 48 hours Mrs Winchester found that almost all of them had eaten the Applaws, Pets at Home’s AVA or Sainsbury’s Hypoallergenic Recipe brands.
She then identified a common manufacturing code on the back of all three – GB218E5009 – which was for Fold Hill Foods Limited production plant in Boston, Lincolnshire.
Mrs Winchester emailed the Royal Veterinary College (RVC) on June 14 and, within 24 hours, a product recall was issued for all three brands.
HR director Sarah Lawrence, who joined the group after losing her three-year-old Maine Coon Sterling, then collated the evidence and presented it to lawyers Leigh Day.
HR director Sarah Lawrence (pictured with her cat Shadow), who joined the group after losing her three-year-old Maine Coon Sterling, then collated the evidence and presented it to lawyers Leigh Day
The firm is now leading a group legal action on behalf of hundreds of clients – mostly
