A Lampeter woman is frantically trying to trace a group of workmen she believes inadvertently ‘kidnapped’ her family’s pet cat after working outside her property at lunchtime yesterday.

The men - sub-contractors for BT Openreach - came to Jane Worrall’s Talsarn property to install a cable for fibre optic broadband.

But shortly after their three vans had left the scene the family were distraught to discover that Puss, their two-year-old tomcat, was missing.

“Puss is a bold and curious little cat – you only have to leave a car door open for a second and he’s in there,” Jane, 64, told the Cambrian News.

“Puss has never gone wandering before and I am absolutely certain his inquisitive nature prompted him to get into one of those vans.”

But despite contacting BT immediately, the Worralls have still not managed to discover who the workmen were - or where their helpless feline stowaway may have been taken.

“We rang BT to ask them to contact the sub-contractors to see if our cat was in their van,” related Jane. “This was at around 1pm.

“I tried all afternoon to obtain a means to contact these three men, sent by Openreach to our property, without success.

“Despite the individuals I spoke to at BT being sympathetic there seems to be nothing they could do to help us to identify and contact the sub-contractor team who came to our house.

“Apart from being absolutely unable to ascertain what has happened to our much-loved cat, I was appalled to discover that neither BT nor Openreach seemed to know the team sent to our premises.

“Surely on very basic security grounds that information should be available to the householder who has a right to know or at least be able to contact such teams?

“Not knowing the fate of our cat is heartbreaking – I am more than happy to pay for information leading to his safe return home.

“However, the larger question remains that contacting BT, and via BT, Openreach, has been a tortuous and ultimately hopeless quest to obtain very basic information.

“I feel this is very bad practice. It is so terribly upsetting and frustrating.

“I am just hoping that anyone reading this who knows who might be sub-contracting for Openreach in the Ceredigion area will come forward to hopefully help us trace our cat.

“I feel BT and Openreach have failed in their customer care, not by inadvertently kidnapping our cat, but by being unable to answer a simple question as to who these men were who were sent to our property.”

Jane is due to appear on the Jeremy Vine Show on BBC Radio 2 today at 12.30pm.

An Openreach spokesperson said: “We’re very sorry to hear that Puss the cat has gone missing and hope for a safe return.

“Our subcontractors were working in the area yesterday and we raised this matter with them as soon as we were made aware.

“We’ve asked our subcontractors to check their vans and their depot on the off chance that Puss hitched a ride with them yesterday.”