The bulldozers didn't paws for thought as they brought the last of Mr Catt's nine lives to an end.

Having spent 18 months fighting Barnet Council's decision to remove the two huge cat enclosures in his garden, Philip Catt's dreams of setting up his own feline breeding ground in Village Road, Finchley, were finally brought crashing down last Thursday morning.

Looking on with a whisker of sadness, 47-year-old Mr Catt - who changed his name in 1996 and has the number plate "CAT343X" - was defiant about the cat-astrophe.

He said: "You tell me who these cages were hurting.

"At the end of the day, the planners can give you the textbook reasons for this, but you have to ask yourself: what is the higher issue here?

"I'm totally fed up. If any of my neighbours had done this in their garden, I wouldn't have objected. I say 'live and let live'."

The 15ft-high wire and brick structures, which until recently housed a number of Savannah and Bengal cats worth up to £12,000 each, were removed from the conservation area following a lengthy process of appeals, in which Mr Catt fought the council all the way to the High Court.

In November 2007 Mr Catt lost his final appeal and was ordered to pay costs of £25,000.

Council leader Mike Freer said: "We hope that this sends a clear signal that development without planning permission, especially within a conservation area, will not be tolerated."

Mr Catt's neighbours were equally unsympathetic. Carolyn Lewis, 50, said she was forced to take her £850,000 house off the market because buyers disliked the view of Mr Catt's catteries from her bedroom window.

"It has been horrendous," she said. "From the moment I moved in, in 2002, he has being doing construction work in his garden, with the last two years dedicated to building these cages that would look much better in London Zoo.

"I haven't been able to use my garden since I arrived in 2002 because of the noise and dirt.

"If I wanted to live next door to a breeding farm for cats or any other creature, I would have moved next door to one."

Doug Daniels, 68, called it "six years of aggravation".

He said: "He has caused nothing but mayhem with his constant building work and bonfires.

"He cut through two main electricity cables, plunging the village into darkness, and cut down 42 trees in his garden, into which he then poured 35 cubic metres of reinforced concrete.

"It's been a complete nightmare."

Mr Catt could not hold back his disappointment as the walls of his £150,000 "Catassic Park" crumbled. Having filled his house with cat memorabilia and changed the name of the road behind his detective agency to "Siamese Mews", his passion for his feline friends could hardly be doubted.

Refusing to pussy-foot around the issue, he said: "For the past seven days it's been like a countdown to execution.

"I've got no idea what I'm going to do now. "