Essex Lion 3

A couple who claimed to have seen an animal which looked like a lion in an Essex field have said they believe the creature is still at large.

A search for the "very large animal" seen near Earl Hall Drive in St Osyth, near Clacton-on-Sea, at about 19:00 BST on Sunday was called off on Monday.

Gill Atkin, on holiday in the village with her husband Steve, said: "I still don't think it was a domestic cat."

Ginny Murphy, of St Osyth, has claimed the animal is her pet cat, Teddy Bear.

Mr and Mrs Atkin, of Louth, Lincolnshire, photographed the animal on Sunday afternoon.

Mr Atkin had told police it was "definitely a very large animal, and possibly a lion, definitely a large cat".

He added: "We witnessed it, I would say, for about 20 to 30 minutes cleaning itself and rolling about in the field."

Mrs Atkin said: "The Mirror [newspaper] has made a bit of a farce of it this morning, saying it was a cat called Tom, but no, I don't think it was a domestic cat.

"Whatever it was, it's definitely still out there."

The first reported sighting was made by holidaymaker Bob Martin, who said he and his wife Denise saw a large cat and a lion "was the first thing that came to mind".

"We believe we saw a large cat looking at a tree... it just sat there looking at us," he said.

Police decided to call off the search on Monday after no trace of a big cat was found, and said the sightings were either of a large domestic cat or wildcat.

A spokesman added the incident was not being treated as a hoax.

Essex Police have not released any details of the cost of the search but have said about 25 officers were called to where the animal was seen, including specialist firearms officers and experts from Colchester Zoo.

Two police helicopters, one with thermal imaging equipment, were also used to try to detect any trace of an animal.

Prowling through the fields the fearsome feline patrols his hunting ground, pausing only occasionally to preen his luxuriant ginger mane.

But hopefully this time domestic cat Teddy Bear, who has been blamed for inadvertently triggering Britain’s biggest safari hunt in living memory by being mistaken for a lion, will be allowed to saunter off in peace.

The three-year-old pet – a Maine Coon which can weigh up to 25lb, be up to 16in tall and 40in long –was seen stalking around his home in Clacton, Essex today after the panic from Sunday night.

But the only thing he seemed to have on his mind was peering through a hole in the fence and lazily walking across a lawn.

And no one could blame him for slinking about after his brush with the limelight over the Bank Holiday weekend.

Teddy Bear lives just a few hundred yards from where holidaymakers spotted a big cat at a caravan park near Clacton in Essex on Sunday.

Following reports of a wild animal on the loose, armed officers and two police helicopters using heat-seeking equipment, which cost £880 an hour to run, were scrambled.

Workers from nearby Colchester Zoo carrying tranquilliser guns scoured the fields and residents were warned to stay indoors. Caravanners were temporarily moved to a nearby garden centre.

But while the local community was plunged into terror, Teddy Bear’s owner Ginny Murphy watched the drama unfold on television from Liverpool, where she was away. And she immediately had her suspicions.

‘It clicked right away,’ she said. ‘We thought it had to be Ted as he’s the only big gingery thing around there and he does tend to wander into that field.’

After looking at the pictures of the supposed lion Mrs Murphy said she had no doubt it was Ted.

‘There’s no question about, it’s him. As we were away he probably went into the field to sulk.

‘From a distance, because he has a light-coloured mane he does look a little lion like. I can see why someone would think that.

‘He’s a Maine Coon, which is the biggest breed of domestic cat. And he’s got the personality to match, he has such a bad attitude and puts the dog in his place all the time.

‘He thinks he’s the man of the house and has often been mistaken for a fox.’

Despite Mrs Murphy’s certainty as to the culprit in Operation Pussycat, however, there remain several witnesses who remain equally convinced that the creature they saw was much more than just a little kitty.

First to spot the animal was Denise Martin, 52, a warehouse worker from Canvey Island, on holiday at Earls Hall Farm with her husband Bob.

‘There was some smoke from a bonfire, but it cleared I could see this shape in the field, so I got the binoculars out,’ she said yesterday.

‘I said to my husband, “What do you make of that?” He said, “That’s a lion.” We weren’t scared at all – it was excitement.

‘You don’t often see something like that in the wild. At one point time it sat up and looked at us and we could see its ears twitching. It knew we were there and it sat down and started cleaning itself.’

Mr Martin, a driver, telephoned police. They initially thought it was a hoax and asked to speak to others at the site.

So he duly knocked on the door of Stephen and Gill Atkin’s caravan as they were settling down to have their supper around 7pm.

Mr Atkin, 52, a building maintenance inspector from Louth, Lincolnshire, said: ‘I went out and had a look through the binoculars. I saw what I’m sure was a very big cat. I thought, “Christ – that’s a lion.” It was big, about the length of two sheep.

‘It was 200 yards away but I wasn’t worried as we were nearer to the safety of our caravan than it was to us.

'The farmer turned up before the police got there and walked towards it, unarmed, and it ran off. He was brave.’

After speaking to Mr Atkin on Mr Martin’s mobile, the police roared into action.

‘They were very sceptical at first, quite understandably,’ Mr Martin said. ‘When they did turn up but they missed it by three minutes.’

The hunt certainly injected an unexpected dose of excitement into the community of St Osyth, which until Sunday had held little intrigue for most except weathermen and caravan enthusiasts.

Officially the driest place in the country (with just 20.2in of rainfall last year, compared with the national average of 45.9in), its other claim to fame is the neighbouring settlement of St Osyth Beach – Essex’s largest concentration of static caravan parks.

But for 20 hours, the village – five miles west of Clacton-on-Sea on the B1027 – became the scene of the dramatic big-game mystery.

As news of the alleged predator in their midst filtered down, what followed was a mixture of unease and disbelief as villagers grappled with the questions on everyone’s mind about the unusual sighting: had it escaped from a zoo, circus or private owner? Was it born free or something tamer?

The search teams failed to find evidence of a lion – no fur, no droppings, one unconfirmed sighting of a paw print – and the police warning was soon downgraded to be ‘a bit wary’ if walking in the country.

Whatever it was, it had not escaped from Colchester Zoo, as all its animals had been accounted for. And a circus that had recently been in town told officers it was not one lion short of a full big top either.

As the day wore on, the mystery deepened as photographs of the by now world famous ‘Essex lion’ began emerging and, as so often in the modern age, were circulated via social networking sites.

Some were downright fakes, others simply seemed to make the situation even more woolly.

One, supposedly taken of it at night by a car, was soon dismissed as a fake.

Another, taken by Mrs Atkin on her digital camera, looked to the untrained eye rather like a sheep although she was genuinely believes it was ‘a big cat with pointy ears and a white ruff’.

Twitter, meanwhile, was awash with parodies, fake pictures and jokes. More than one gag dwelled on the fact that a luxurious mane and a permanent tan meant this ‘lion’ would blend in well with the Essex natives.

By last night most of St Osyth’s 4,119 residents were sleeping a little easier, safe in the knowledge that a rumble with a ‘King of the Jungle’ remains unlikely in their quiet neck of the woods.