Psychic joins search for missing cat in Lincolnshire

Oliver went missing from his owner's home in October

An Indian psychic is helping to search for cat which went missing from a Lincolnshire village.

Oliver, a four-year-old tabby and white cat, went missing from Boothby Graffoe in October.

Owner Sue Machen, 56, has paid £1,000 for Hertfordshire-based company Animal Search UK to hunt for the animal.

It has employed psychic Sarita Gupta, who is based in Bangalore, to help in the search, a move which has been criticised by a sceptics' society.

Ms Gupta believes the cat has been adopted as a stray by a new family, who do not know he has an owner.

Ms Machen said: "The expense [for the search] is immaterial.

"I am just desperate to know what has happened to him. I am hoping he has wandered off and been picked up by someone."

[They] would likely be the suggestions you'd get from someone without psychic powers Merseyside Skeptics Society spokesman

Tom Watkins, who is leading the search, said: "We have had some good publicity and we are building up a picture of where Oliver might be.

"We are hoping the psychic is right and we will receive a call about where Oliver is.

"That would be mission accomplished if we can achieve that."

The team said a missing cat in Birmingham had been found in a Wendy house after the same psychic said it would turn up "where children play".

A spokesman for the Merseyside Skeptics Society said: "Looking at the advice given by the psychic in both cases, we have the suggestion that the cat is staying with another family, and the idea that lost cats like to be near children.

"Both of these are incredibly obvious scenarios to suggest for a missing cat, and would likely be the suggestions you'd get from someone without psychic powers - and without the need for a fee, too."