Missing cat reunited with owners after being presumed dead for six years

A missing cat has been reunited with its owners after being presumed dead for six years (Picture: SWNS)

A cat that has been missing for six years was finally reunited with his owners after they thought he had died.

The black cat, named ‘Jimi Hendrix’, is back with his family after a rescue charity scanned his microchip and used Facebook to reunite them. 

Jimi’s owner, Joanna Farmer, presumed Jimi had died after he escaped from a friend’s open window in Torquay, Cornwall in August 2016. 

Joanna and her husband Nik searched all over for Jimi but had no luck, until now.

Time passed and the couple moved away, and now live in Brixham with their three children aged six, four and two. Their other cat Frankie passed away and they recently got a kitten.

But last week, a stray black cat was reported to the Torquay-based charity Hector’s House after being spotted at a house near where the couple used to live. 

The owner of the house lives away from the property, but had noticed on her security camera that the cat was regularly sleeping on a doormat.

The cat, named ‘Jimi Hendrix’ was rescued by a charity after it was spotted sleeping outside a vacant house (Picture: SWNS)

Jimi was presumed dead by his owners after he escaped through a friend’s open window in Torquay, Cornwall in August 2016 (Picture: Joanna Farmer / SWNS)

Volunteers from the charity noticed the cat when they went to inspect the house but it was too wary to be approached so they used a humane trap to ensnare him instead.

The charity scans all cats that come into their care, and when Jimi was scanned by volunteers they discovered he had previously been reported missing, although the owner’s contact details were now out of date.

The charity posted an appeal on Facebook in an attempt to find the owner, and soon Joanna heard about it and got in touch.

She was finally reunited with her cat in an emotional visit at the weekend at the charity’s HQ in Torquay, and has now started the process of slowly introducing Jimi to her household.

Joanna said: ‘We searched the area for weeks, but there was no sign of him. We did have a few sightings, but none turned out to be him. We moved again, and I had kind of given up hope by then.

‘It was horrible, I was absolutely devastated. People say, “It’s just a cat,” but he looked after me during my pregnancy, he used to cuddle my bump. He was the most loving cat.

Joanna has since begun to inroduce Jimi to her new family (Picture: Joanna Farmer / SWNS)

‘He was two when he went, and that was the last I saw of him until yesterday. I waited in the pen, and I think there was something there when he looked at me. 

‘He looked right at my face, and he pushed himself up to my hand, like he used to do. I have been ecstatic all night.’

A spokesperson for Hector’s House Cat Rescue said: ‘We are absolutely delighted that Jimi is back with his family after such a long time. It shows how important it is to have your cat microchipped and to make sure the chip is registered with a database.

‘Having done that, you should keep your details up to date. We would urge anyone who has concerns about a cat to contact a rescue so that it can be scanned. If the house owner had not called us, Jimi would still be out there.’

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A missing cat named ‘Jimi Hendrix’ has been reunited with his owners after he went missing six years ago.