A father has told of the terror he felt when his son was chased by a "big cat" through the woodlands.
The pair had been on a cycling trip when they came across the large animal, with father Martin Abonyi watching in fear as the mystery mega cat sprinted towards his 11-year-old son, Harry.
Luckily the creature did not attack and both the pair were unharmed, but the experience has left Harry "quite shook up," according to Martin.
They had been enjoying a bike ride through the trails of Black Carr Plantation when Martin saw the shocking creature.
He said: "My son was riding about 30 yards in front of me. As we rounded a corner I saw out of the corner of my eye a large black animal sprinting out from the cover of the woods heading directly for my son, running diagonally to head him off.
"My first thought was of a large black dog as I wasn’t geared up for expecting anything else. The woods are popular with dog walkers, so I quickly looked to my left to see if I could identify the owners of the dog.
"I was a bit concerned at the animal's intentions at this stage, but when I looked back to see if it was close to my son, the animal had disappeared."
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Martin continued: "It looked like a very large cat and not a dog, there were no owners or other people in sight or earshot. Pet dogs simply don’t do that. The cover was not that dense so it must have been hiding well."
Harry didn't spot the large cat at the time, with Martin waiting until they were out of the woods to tell him so as not to cause alarm, YorkshireLive reported.
Martin added: "Obviously my son had no idea so he wasn’t scared at the time, but I was quite alarmed.
"When I got in I did a quick search in google and was really surprised to find out that this area is actually a hotbed for big black cat sightings, with one being spotted less than a mile away form our sighting last year."
In the days since, Martin has returned to the woods with a big cat investigator who is collating reports of sightings in the area.
As well as finding an animal scrape, they saw "what looked like a large cat paw left in fresh earth about 100 yards away from the original sighting."
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