Simba, a one-year-old black tabby, was badly burned when teenage yobs tied a firework to his tail and lit it.

His owner, 21-year-old Jessica Cummins, of Hill Garth, Thornhill, described the attack as sickening: “I went out at about tea time to call Simba in but he didn’t come. Around 3am I got up to feed my baby and he came in.

“He brushed up against me and when I looked down there was blood all over my leg.

“I looked at his tail and you could see the bone. It was very badly burned.”

She took Simba to the vet the next morning.

The burns were so severe Simba had to have three inches removed from his tail.

“It makes me feel sick,” she added. “Especially as they have gone out with the intention of doing this.

“Simba is much more worried about people now.”

In a separate incident cat-lover Andrea Coburn, 38, of Thorn Avenue, Overthorpe, had her eight-year-old cat Toast attacked so viciously on November 4 he had to be put to sleep.

She said: “We had been out for a couple of hours. When I got back I called him in.

“My daughter found him. Half his face was gone. There was blood everywhere.

“We took him to PDSA in Bradford.

“They told me it looked like someone had given him a really good belt.”

Ms Coburn described the attack as absolutely devastating as Toast was a much-loved family pet.

“He had to have his eye taken out, his jaw wired up and his face stitched together.

“In the end the vet said it was kinder to put him to sleep.”

Both attacks come on the back of a spate of similar incidents in Dewsbury including a cat that was found dead two weeks ago in Overthorpe Park, Thornhill, after being shot in the stomach with an airgun and having a lit firework inserted into it.

According to RSPCA figures there was an 82 per cent increase in calls regarding distressed animals over the bonfire period last year.

To help protect pets, the organisation recommends keeping them inside safely away from fireworks.