PEOPLE in this country have their priorities all wrong.

Bank clerk Mary Bale has become an international hate figure after dumping a family’s pet cat in a wheelie bin.

Caught on CCTV, Ms Bale is seen walking down a street in Coventry before stopping to stroke the tabby, Lola.

She then looks around her before picking the cat up and putting it in a nearby wheelie bin and walking away.

Lola was trapped in the bin for 15 hours, before her worried owners looked back at the bizarre CCTV footage and discovered what had happened to her.

While Ms Bale’s barmy behaviour is clearly bonkers, and definitely cruel, it does not warrant the hate campaign which has led to her receiving death threats and consequently being put under 24-hour police protection.

She also faces losing her job, with customers threatening to boycott the bank branch where she works.

On one website, a member of the public has commented on the saga by writing: “Mary Bale is no better than Ian Huntley, Josef Fritzl or Raoul Moat.”

Huntley – murdered 10 year olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.

Fritzl – kept his daughter imprisoned in a dungeon for 24 years, and fathered seven children by her after repeatedly raping her.

Moat – shot dead a 29-year-old karate instructor, injured his girlfriend, and shot a police officer, leaving him blind.

Bale – put a tabby cat in a wheelie bin.

Spot the odd one out? Despite animal lovers calling for Ms Bale to be arrested, she has not committed a criminal offence – not even a minor one.

The RSPCA is investigating the incident, and may decide to prosecute, and this should be an end to the matter.

The public’s reaction is an overreaction, and no mistake.

It is, after all, only a cat.

The story in itself was hardly worth a media mention, but the ridiculous response to it has whipped the tabloids into a storm.

The Sun has even created an online game where you can whack Ms Bale over the head with a wheelie bin lid.

With far more important things going on in the world, it angers me that people are so outraged at what, in the grand scheme of things, is such an insignificant incident.

Our society’s skewed priorities are perfectly illustrated by Comet reader Mr Atkins, who in our letters page last week berated Stevenage Borough Council for failing to adequately mark the death of Stevenage doctor, Karen Woo, who was killed earlier this month while on an aid mission in Afghanistan.

He rightly pointed out that the council is all too eager to shout about the success of Stevenage Football Club, and to boast about the achievements of F1 racing driver Lewis Hamilton, who hasn’t even lived in Stevenage for years.

Mr Atkins says that when “a doctor who lays down her life for mankind is forgotten, it makes one wonder where our priorities are”.

And it does. Let’s get some perspective and realise just what’s important in life.