A martial arts expert was left shaking last Wednesday after he was “100 per cent sure” he spotted a big cat lurking near his home in West Dulwich.

Roger Fleming, a building manager for Chrysalis Music, was jogging with his dog on a public path leading through woodlands from College Road to Sydenham Hill at 11.45pm on Wednesday, December 9.

He said he noticed the dog’s lead had become loose, and called him back to reattach it.

Mr Fleming said: “As I was tying his lead, I looked down the hill and saw something moving in the shadows about 20-30 metres away. I thought it must be a fox, but then it walked under a street light.

“It had the head and shoulders of a cheetah, and it was brown. It locked on to me, and I just started running for my life. It chased me for about 30 seconds.”

Mr Fleming said the incident had shaken him so badly that he was unable to work properly the following day. He added: “I’ve done martial arts for 20 years, and I’ve never felt so weak and useless in my life. I thought, ‘this could be it’.”

Mr Fleming said he will no longer go running at night.

His sighting is not the first in the area. The “Sydenham Beast” became notorious in March 2005, when police armed with tasers responded to a call in which a man was attacked by a black cat the size of a Labrador, and several sightings have been reported since.

RSPCA spokesman Claire Kennet said: “We do receive calls concerning big cat sightings, and we tell individuals to call the police if they believe it threatens their personal safety. However, we don’t go out looking high and low, as it’s not a matter of animal welfare. It usually turns out to be a big domestic cat or a Labrador.”

Mr Fleming said before his experience he would have been sceptical about any big cat sighting in London. “I would have disregarded anything like that - I would have thought it could never happen.”

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