TWO Comet readers have reported sighting a big cat during the past week. Bill Brown, 52, of Poplars, Stevenage, spotted a large cat he describes as looking like a small mountain lion while he drove to work along Hatch Lane, between Weston and Baldock,

TWO Comet readers have reported sighting a big cat during the past week.

Bill Brown, 52, of Poplars, Stevenage, spotted a large cat he describes as looking like a small mountain lion while he drove to work along Hatch Lane, between Weston and Baldock, recently.

"It took a great leap out of a ditch at the side of the road and disappeared into the standing corn," said Mr Brown, who runs a business in Letchworth GC.

"It was sandy coloured and not a dog or a deer. It looked more like a small mountain lion. I didn't stop to see where it had gone."

Mr Brown said he had a similar sighting a few years ago while he was driving to Ware and spotted a big black cat with a long tail in a field near a farm. Two days later, he says, he saw the carcass of a cow being loaded on to a trailer.

"Had the cat had its dinner I asked myself," said Mr Brown.

The other sighting in Comet country was last Friday when a Letchworth GC man out walking near Clothall Common spotted a large black cat in a field. Once again he felt it was not a deer or dog.

""It was definitely a big cat. I was walking along the edge of the field and watched it go into some woodland," said the man, who did want to be named.

He claimed the police were called by a woman motorist who had told him she had also spotted a big black cat.