Easter horror: Child, 9, left devastated after family pet rabbit is found decapitated in their garden

By
Emma Reynolds

07:59 EST, 9 April 2012

|

10:34 EST, 9 April 2012

Despicable attack: Sarah Baldwin was horrified to find her rabbit's headless body in the back garden (file picture)

Despicable attack: Sarah Baldwin was horrified to find her rabbit’s headless body in the back garden (file picture)

A nine-year-old girl was devastated after her pet rabbit was beheaded in a despicable Easter crime.

Sarah Baldwin found the remains of her beloved Tony – a lop-eared bunny – when the body was thrown back into the family’s garden in Leatherhead, Surrey.

Tony was stolen from his hutch a fortnight ago and his gutted corpse tossed over the fence four days later.

The appalled child found the body upon returning from a shopping trip with her mother.

Sarah’s mother Chloe, 29, said the bunny’s head had still not been found.

‘Chloe has been left distraught,’ she said. ‘After we found Tony, she actually didn’t want to come into the house that night. 

‘She stayed at our best friend’s house because she was absolutely petrified. She doesn’t want to be left alone.’

Miss Baldwin’s partner Paul Watts, 49, was awoken on the night
of the cruel attack by the sound of the family’s four other rabbits
‘thumping’, but he could not see anything.

The household has now spent more than £100 on padlocks and are installing CCTV to stop the thugs targeting the other rabbits.

Miss Baldwin added: ‘It’s like being a prisoner in your own home. I’m petrified. If I pop out to the shops I don’t feel comfortable.

Frightened: The family have bought padlocks and are installing CCTV to safeguard their remaining pets

Frightened: The family have bought padlocks and are installing CCTV to safeguard their remaining pets

‘Every morning I come out and don’t know what I will find. I have not slept properly since it happened.’

A neighbour, who did not want to be named, said: ‘Poor little Sarah has been in tears about her rabbit.

‘It is an absolutely horrible thing to do to behead a rabbit, especially given the time of year when Easter bunnies are all over the place.’

A police spokeswoman said: ‘Anyone who has information about the mistreatment of the rabbit should contact Surrey Police.’

Here’s what other readers have said. Why not add your thoughts,
or debate this issue live on our message boards.

The comments below have been moderated in advance.

A Curse on the Monster that did this, what Goes Around Comes Around.

Animal cruelty is endemic in the UK,just like gangs,thugs and booze.

Pete, Sheffield..did you actually “think” before your fingers started typing??? Seriously believe a Heron or fox would take a rabbit from it’s hutch and then return it 2 weeks later? “Oh, this is where I found it..must return it!”
Kids that start out this way usually go on to bigger and larger prey…i.e Humans
If it was an adult – yes, I would be scared too! All sorts of crazy in this world!!!

Bob London: “You see these subtle clues of really sick pathology in many news stories these days. It’s really worrying to me”
And we can only guess at the causes of the sick pathology as you put it. It’s generally young people who do this stuff in my experience as a lawyer, but I’m not saying it’s exclusive to that age group. So we need to look for things that this group have been exposed to eg grater use of recreational drugs than other generations, computer games using violence, internet porn, poor education, intense marketing pressure to have designer goods but they feel resentment because they can’t afford them, hostility to people who appear to have normal lives eg live in a house with a garden and a car parked in the drive etc Movies too no longer show the better side of human nature where the good guy wins out over the evil guys. It’s cool to be cruel apparently. It’s a sad reflection on society. And in particular “the market” that plays a huge part in attitudes of the young.

There is some really sick people about.

This is shocking news, this shouldn’t happen but unfortunately we live in a ‘sick and unsafe’ society. I always say that people who attack and kill animals, can easily do the same to humans.

Well the police will be useless sadly. They could care less. Best anyone can hope for is that someone, somewhere knows who it was and lets something slip….

And we all know what happens to people who start off killing animals… If Tony was missing for a while I’m sure more than one person knows what happened to him. Poor rabbit.

Why?
I just don’t understand why someone would do that.

People are just becoming more vengeful and feral for the tiniest reason. A friend of mine came home to find her cat dying and poisoned and all because she’d had a minor tiff with the neighbour. He wasn’t brave enough to poison her kids so her poisoned her cat instead.
– Jean, Blackburn, Lancs,
Why would it be ‘brave’ to poison children – people think that if they kill animals, they won’t be punished. There’s nothing that can be said about people who do this – either killing rabbits or cats.

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