A CONTROVERSIAL Birmingham MP has finally admitted that Birmingham Mail readers were right over a case of mistaken identity involving his stolen cat.

Yardley MP John Hemming confirmed that the cat he and his lover Emily Cox thought might be the missing cat Beauty is not.

Instead, they have kept one of the animal’s kittens and called it Patches.

The Liberal Democrat MP, aged 51, confirmed that the cat was not Beauty during an interview in which he revealed that he is to become a dad for the fifth time.

He said: “The cat that we thought was Beauty wasn’t. But that cat had kittens and we now have one of those, called Patches.”

In an online poll 95 per cent of eagle-eyed Birmingham readers thought that the new cat was almost definitely not Beauty, while an expert vet from Cats Protection, viewing the photographs of the two cats, doubted they were the same.

The couple were looking for their cat after it was stolen from Ms Cox’s house in Moseley by Mr Hemming’s wife Christine