Purebred stray Burmese cat trapped in St Paul's Cathedral

This is a rather strange story because we are told that the Burmese cat that fell 15 feet down a shaft in the basement of St Paul's Cathedral was sold (apparently) by a breeder and she is also micro-chipped.

The RSPCA rescued the cat. They named her Paula after St Paul's Cathedral which I think is a nice idea.

Purebred stray Burmese cat trapped in St Paul's Cathedral. Name Pauls after St Paul's. Image: RSPCA.

A teenager in the Cathedral yard raised the alarm after seeing Paula vanish under a slab. The teenager was playing in the churchyard after school. She saw Paula run off. The teenager became upset but she was able to give the RSPCA a geotrack location which helped the RSPCA officer to pinpoint the cat's position. Well done to this teenager.

The officer spoke to the Cathedral's security about gaining access and discovered that it is an old storage basement that apparently no one had used a key to get down to for 25 years.

She walked down a steep and narrow staircase into complete darkness before discovering a chamber which led to several corridors and found the cat hiding, covered in fleas. Clearly Paula had been a stray for some time.

It is fortunate that she fell onto a bed of leaves which broke her fall and she was pretty well okay except for a slight graze on her chin and in desperate need of flea treatment; indicative of the fact that she had been astray for some time. Although she doesn't look as if she was starving.

The RSPCA contacted Paula's registered owner as per the microchip details and discovered that the cat had been sold four years before. It appears that the microchip relates to a cat breeder and that the purchaser of the cat did not change the microchip details.

Therefore the RSPCA don't know the current owner if one could argue that Paula still has an owner because she's been astray for a long time and it appears lost or abandoned.

The RSPCA have put posters around St Paul's Cathedral in in the hope of finding her owner. Paula was treated at RSPCA Finsbury Park Animal Hospital before being moved to the RSPCA Laybourne Animal Centre near West Malling in Kent.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.