Havahart live catch trap. However the cat will soon learn to avoid it

Thanks for the info. If Mr Twain was right, once should be enough. Still not sure of the best way to apply the 'treatment' without getting bitten or scratched though. I don't imagine the cat will raise its tail and wait :-)

Regarding the advice from GUEST,JTT about dealing with the neighbour: one problem would be the difficulty of proving the injuries to your cat were indeed caused by the neighbour's cat. Where I live, there are other cats around, so the neighbour could justifiably say there's no evidence it was her cat that did the damage to yours. But maybe that's not the case with the OP's friend.

Secondly, keeping our cat in at specific times would be very difficult. If you have an 'outdoor' cat (as opposed to a 'house' cat) they resent being kept in against their will - at least, ours does. On the vet's advice, we recently had to keep him in while he recovered from one of the aforementioned battle wounds, and it was a nightmare for us! He constantly tries to find a way out, so we daren't open any windows, and have to block up the chimney, etc., while he constantly meows to show his displeasure at being kept in, and drives us nuts (he's Burmese too btw! - are these common among folkies?) :-)