A FURTHER late night sighting of a big cat has been made near Lechlade this week.

Lynn Kyle, 48, and her husband Orr (CORR), 50, saw what they described as a big black cat when they were driving around a roundabout just outside of Lechlade from the Burford direction, at around 2am on Sunday morning, January 15.

They stopped the car to get a better look at the creature which was the size of a Border collie and was sniffing around a tree by the roadside.

Lynn, who works at the Royal Agricultural College in Cirencester, said the first thing she noticed was the sleekness of the jet black cat along with its long body and small head, and she said it did not look like a domestic cat.

She added: "We were coming home from a party so it was quite a surprise to see it, but I wasn’t worried or afraid – I just thought it was very exciting."

Big cat expert Frank Tunbridge said the description was typical of the sort of wild cat sightings that were frequently reported in the Cotswolds, and that it was likely to be a black leopard.

Mr Tunbridge, from Gloucester, said: "Black leopards are smaller than people often think – the larger the prey, the larger the animal and these big cats can survive quite well on smaller prey like voles and rabbits."

He added that there was no doubt that big cats were living in the Cotswolds and believed they could be breeding in deserted areas such as stone quarries in the area.