A large feline has been spotted pouncing through the undergrowth in Chiswell Green, suggesting the big cat of St Albans may have returned.

Hasnat Chowdhury, a 14-year-old student, was in a car with his mum at about 11pm on May 31 when he spied an unusual creature in the woods by Watling View.

He said it was too big to be a domestic animal, had grey or black fur and pointy ears - like a lynx.

Hasnat said: “In the woods there was no one, it was pure dark. And then my eyes met something. At first I thought it was just a cat and then as we came closer, a dog.

“As we edged nearer I came to realise that it couldn’t be a cat or a dog. It was just too big.”

The sighting left him in awe: “I fell under the assumption that it was a hyena, but they don’t live here and it was too small to be one.

“As the light shone on it, it stayed still surrounded by plants but its eyes glowed white for a split second. It had black grey thick fur and I believe it came up to the average man’s hip.

“I looked around to see if anyone was around to ensure that it wasn’t just a dog, but no one was there.

“In awe, I sat baffled with my head glued against the window and couldn’t tell my mum to stop in time before it pounced away.”

Hasnat is certain he saw the infamous St Albans big cat.

He said: “I think that the people of St Albans should know about this amazing phenomenon as it may be dangerous and there have been several sightings of this before. So it would be crucial to let them know that it isn’t over yet.

“I do not have any physical evidence but I am not lying.”

Heated debate erupts in the local community every time an eyewitness reports sightings of the big cat to the Herts Ad, never more so than when a taxi driver snapped a possible video of the beast.

Half of a mutilated deer, stripped to the spine, was found by a dog walker in April and in June large “feline” pawprints were preserved leading through a golf bunker after a night of rain.

In January 2017 two Oaklands College staff members saw “a large, sandy-coloured cat”, scratch marks were found on a tree after a “huge animal” was seen near Welwyn, and a big black cat was spotted by Luton Airport last year.

A Freedom of Information request in November 2016 revealed that Herts police received about 30 big cat reports in the previous five years.