`Catnap' lands man in jail

A property developer who stole a colleague's pet cat as a "foolish prank" during a row over money was jailed for three months yesterday.

Nigel Bass, 33, had exploited Ilona Szekere's affections and emotions when he catnapped William the Persian Blue from its home in Clapham, south- west London, an Old Bailey court was told. Miss Szekere had pleaded: "All I want is my cat - please don't hurt him." But Bass demanded pounds 10,000 for its safe return.

"Blackmail in its very essence strikes at the vulnerability of the victim," the judge, Recorder Ann Curnow told Bass, a father-of-two from Shepherd's Bush, west London. "Her profound anxiety is painfully clear from the evidence. You were playing throughout on her emotions. She was a friend and colleague and you knew of her love and devotion for her cats, especially William."

Bass had told police afterwards that Miss Szekere's two cats were like children to her. She once told him: "If you ever want to get anything out of me - kidnap my cats."

He admitted blackmailing Miss Szekere last January after he became irritated that she had not paid him what he thought he should have received at the end of a second property deal he had worked on for her.

John Ryder, for Bass, said he and Miss Szekere were good friends. He often visited her flat and they sometimes went out to dinner and talked on the telephone regularly. But there was no sexual element in their relationship. "His relationship with the victim was adolescent characterised by practical jokes and humorous exchanges."

The taking of William "was conceived in jest but ran ... out of control and he is genuinely sorry. But the escalation from what he calls a foolish prank into something more serious is not exclusively of his making."