What motivated Steve Bouquet to become the 'Brighton Cat Killer'?

The serial cat killing in Brighton by Steve Bouquet, 54, went viral in the online news media. The reporting was extensive. He was convicted and sentenced to more than five years in prison. The outcome was unusual because normally cat killers get away with it because of a lack of evidence. Steve Bouquet slipped up. He was videoed on a security camera when he went back to have a look at a crime scene. And the police found a knife in his home with cat blood on it.

Steve Bouquet. Photo: Sussex News and Pictures

At the time of the serial killing, the news media and therefore the public were unaware of the fact that that Bouquet was dying of terminal cancer. He is now dead. He died in prison. Cat lovers will not mourn his passing. They may be delighted. Although he escaped his punishment.

But what concerns me today, is why did he do it? What makes a person want to kill 16 cats with a knife and succeed on nine occasions?

We have a glimpse of an insight into answering that question from the CPS (Britain's prosecuting service). In the trial the CPS was represented by Rowan Jenkins. The trial took place at Lewes Crown Court.

RELATED: Trial of Steve Bouquet the 'Brighton Cat Killer' who allegedly stabbed 16 cats.

Mr Jenkins said that the attacks on the cats followed a strikingly unusual pattern. And tellingly, he said that Bouquet searched for news about the investigation. He said that Bouquet followed the story obsessively.

"This was for a very simple reason - these reports are about him".

Bouquet kept as secretive as possible but he went back to the scene of one of his crimes and was picked up on security camera of a neighbour of the owner of one of the cats who were stabbed. And he followed his crimes in the news media obsessively.

He knew that he was dying I would argue. It seems to me that he was seeking celebrity. He wanted to be somebody for once in his life and the only way he could achieve that was through a high-profile crime. That entailed serial killing and it is pretty straightforward to be a serial killer of domestic cats in the UK because there's lots of them outside unsupervised.

He wanted notoriety. He wanted to be infamous. These were his last desperate attempts. He achieved his goal. He was talked about a lot in news media. He perhaps knew that he would be sent to jail but that he would escape most of his sentence because he would die well before he was released. I think he knew it. I think it was all planned out.

A lot of these sorts of crimes are carried out by individuals who are borderline psychopathic or psychopathic for the sake of achieving fame, to be noticed for once in their lives.