IT took five firefighters, an RSPCA officer, plenty of washing-up liquid and the kindness of a neighbour to rescue a trapped cat.

Justine Page, of St David’s Close, Colchester, was alerted by a “almighty cry” from her cat, Whitey.

After searching for him, Miss Page found him trapped in a tiny gap between the wall of next door’s house and the garage.

The 29-year-old said: “He was in a lot of distress, so I immediately called the fire brigade.

“I was terrified he would be left there to die, but, thankfully, my neighbour let us make a hole in his garage in order to rescue the cat.

“I’m so grateful to the fire brigade, the RSPCA and my neighbour.”

Firefighters reached the cat by drilling a small hole in the garage wall, but were unable to pull him out of the tiny gap.

Craig Todd, leading firefighter for Colchester’s red watch, said: “Because he had slipped to the bottom, we couldn’t get anything down close enough to reach him, so we had to nicely ask the next door neighbours if they minded us knocking a hole in their garage wall.

“With the help of the RSPCA officer, we tried to get the loop of a rod around the cat’s head but this proved difficult and we thought the cat had died a couple of times.

“The cat was very distressed and we decided the only way we were going to do it was to cover the cat’s head and the wall with washing-up liquid. Thankfully, it did the trick.”

Whitey was trapped for about an 90 minutes on Tuesday evening. He is being cared for by vets and is in a “stable” but “critical” condition.