A woman believes she has caught video footage of a big cat wandering around St Albans city centre.

Sara, who would prefer to only use her first name, spotted a “strange animal” run in front of her car as she drove along Hall Place Gardens on Saturday, December 29.

Chalking it up to dim lighting, Sara was trying to turn around when it ran out into the road a second and third time.

This gave Sara enough time to whip out her phone and snap some film.

She said: “As I looked to my left, there was this big animal that was really strange looking. It was grey, had a really long tail and was the size of a small dog - but it definitely wasn’t a dog.

“The tail was skinny and it moved like a cat.”

She thinks it looked disorientated and confused, but that it could still scare unwitting pedestrians by walking brazenly around the city centre.

Adding: “It was crazy - if I hadn’t taken the picture I wouldn’t have believed it myself, but I know what I saw.”

This is the second video which claims to prove the existence of a big feline around the district. In June 2017 taxi driver Jahid Choudhury had finished a shift and was driving home along Napsbury Lane at about 4.30am when he caught an animal on his dash cam.

Realising what he thinks he had seen, Jahid went home and called the police. He said: “I have seen lots of big deers and foxes, but this is the wildest animal I have ever seen.”

However, after it was published on the Herts Ad many residents dismissed the film as simply showing a large house cat.

Heated debate erupts every time an eyewitness reports seeing the big cat, for example when a dog walker found half a mutilated deer in April 2018 or when large “feline” pawprints were preserved leading through a golf bunker after a night of rain in June 2018.

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 in 2016.

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

What do you think? Email hertsad@archant.co.uk