A CAT lover is walking the streets picking up deceased pets — in the hope of re-uniting them with their families.

Heléna Abrahams experienced heartache after one of her own cats was hit by a car and cremated without her knowledge in 2016.

The full-time cat sitter went on to launch a Facebook page, ‘DECEASED CATS UK AND IRL’, to help cat owners “get the closure they need as soon as possible for their beloved fur babies.” More than 2,500 people now follow the page.

Miss Abrahams is now petitioning for a new law that obliges councils to scan injured or dead cats that are found on the roads.

The 47-year-old, who has eight cats of her own, said: “I volunteer because cats are treated like rubbish by councils up and down the country. They hardly ever bother to scan them. They just dispose of them like trash.

“It takes two minutes to scan someone’s beloved pet and get it home but so many councils can’t be bothered.”

The number of cats and kittens Miss Abrahams collects week on week varies from one to about 10.

She covers her hometown Bury, as well as Radcliffe Bolton and as far away as Chorlton and Droylsden.

“Many cats picked up just look asleep, some are in a bad way. I wear gloves and wrap them in towels and then into a bag. I treat them with total respect”, Miss Abrahams said.

The cats are then taken to Armac Vets in Bury where they are scanned for a chip.

Miss Abrahams uses the ‘lost and found’ Facebook pages to share posts about the pets she finds in the hope of tracking their owners.

Under current law, motorists must report collisions with dogs, horses, cattle, pigs, goats, sheep or donkeys to the police.

However, when it comes to cats, even if they are killed, drivers can choose whether or not they report the incident to their local council.

A Bolton Council spokeswoman said: “Where it is practical, we take the remains of recovered pets to a local shelter who scan them for microchips and attempt to contact the owner.”

The petition, with more than 13,000 signatures, can be found at https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/216215.