Footage shows a suspected ‘big cat’ watching walkers after being spotted at a remote Yorkshire beauty spot.

The large animal, which onlookers believed was ‘twice the size’ of a domesticated moggy, was seen on farmland near the town of Askrigg, North Yorkshire.

One passerby, who wanted to remain anonymous, said the sighting had come after a sheep was found ‘ripped to shreds’ in a nearby field.

And they believed the dark black cat could even be the offspring of an adult panther spotted in the area years ago.

The witness said: “My friend has a farm track and it was just at the end… It looked about twice the size of a normal cat.

“Not long ago around my other back field, I called the farmer because there was a dead sheep. They’ve never seen anything like it because it was ripped to shreds.

“You’re talking older farmers, 70-year-old farmers, and they’ve never seen anything like it.

"And this was a huge sheep, absolutely massive. Something enormous had it.

A suspected 'big cat' in North YorkshireA suspected 'big cat' in North Yorkshire (Image: SWNS) They added: “There are quite a lot of things on these moors which do make you wonder.”

The witness said they had seen the suspicious animal on November 13 while walking along the private farm track.

They estimated it could have been around four to five feet in length and had stayed in the field briefly before disappearing behind one of the rolling hills.

Their sighting came almost a decade after they claimed to have seen a much larger ‘panther’ while returning from a morning jog in the rural area.

And they now believed the two sightings could be linked.

The witness said: “Nine years ago, I didn’t have my phone on me, I walked through the gate after going on a run on Askrigg Moor and I saw a massive cat, probably the size of a labrador, right in front of me.

“That was jet black, but it angelically walked in front of me and then over a wall… Its tail was longer than its body.

“So I know on these moors there are these things. For a long time, I never told anyone because I thought, ‘Oh my god, they’ll think I’m a crazy woman.'”

The possible big cat sighting comes after other similar instances across the Northern England in recent years.

In May, scientists from the University of Warwick said DNA on a sheep carcass in Cumbria suggested it could have been mauled by a predator, such as a leopard.