The estranged wife of a British member of Parliament was found guilty of burglary Friday after being caught on camera breaking into his lover's home and stealing her kitten.
A Birmingham Crown Court jury deliberated for five hours before convicting Christine Hemming, 53.
The prosecution said she stole Beauty, a 4-month-old tabby, three days after separating from her husband, John, a Liberal Democrat MP in Birmingham, in September last year.
Closed-circuit TV footage showed her crawling on her hands and knees underneath a window of the home of Emily Cox, a researcher with whom the MP fathered a child in 2005, before sneaking in and leaving with the cat tucked under her arm.
"The defendant, Mrs. Hemming, had sneaked around the back garden, she had opened the back door, she had entered Emily’s house and she remained in that house for three minutes or so," said prosecutor Jason Pegg, according to metro.com.uk.
"She then left the house through the same door which she had entered but, when she left the house, under her left arm was Beauty the kitten.’
Heming denied the charges, saying she could not remember taking the cat and had gone to the house to deliver letters for her husband.
"Everything just got out of hand," she told the court Wednesday, according to BBC.
"I didn't mean to enter the property.
"I left holding a kitten — there is no doubt about that — but I have no recollection of picking the kitten up."
She said after she realized she had the kitten, she tried to return it by slipping it under the fence of a house in a street in Cox's neighborhood, BCC reported.
She will be sentenced next month.
According to BBC, Pegg said after the verdict: "We're still unsure what the motive behind the burglary was but whatever it might be, a crime was committed and today Mrs. Hemming has been convicted of that crime."
Beauty has not been seen since the theft despite a plea for information and an offer of a reward on John Hemming's official website. He said his other cat misses Beauty.
"Her brother Twinkle is pining for her," he wrote on his blog.
