Mouse's head bitten off
Devonport, AU (NZ)Incident Date: Friday, Feb 8, 2008
Disposition: Alleged
Abuser names unreleased
Police are preparing to arrest a man who killed a pet mouse by grabbing it from its shocked woman owner and biting its head.
North Shore police say they know who the man is and as soon as they find him he will be arrested and charged with assault, cruelty to animals and offensive behaviour.
Auckland SPCA's chief executive Bob Kerridge says the woman is likely to be scarred for life by the incident, which happened on Friday morning in Devonport, on Auckland's North Shore.
The woman, whose name has not been released, was walking to her son's school with her pet mouse, Nibbles, nestled in her top.
Police say she was confronted by a group of drunk or drugged men, one of whom reached out, grabbed Nibbles and put him in his mouth, crushing him.
It is understood that the woman rushed her pet to an emergency vet, to no avail.
"I still can't believe someone would be so barbaric," she wrote on the TradeMe message boards on Friday afternoon. It has been one hell of a day and I think I need a glass of wine and a cuddle from my cat. If I have to go to court, I will. The b*****d should not be allowed to get away with this."
The woman first poured her heart out online immediately after Nibbles' death, but she was not believed by the hundreds of other traders who read it. Distraught, she called police and her husband, who, she said, rushed home from work to be with her.
Senior Sergeant Jenni Richardson confirmed that the suspect was known to police and the woman would be visited by Victim Support.
"It's one of the most bizarre things I've heard in a while," Richardson says. "I presume that she's terribly traumatised by the whole thing ... I'd be terribly traumatised if it happened to me."
Kerridge says the loss of a beloved pet is always traumatic, "but to lose it in those circumstances would be really quite horrendous. It was obviously a very much-loved animal, and a part of that family."
According to a previous posting by the owner on TradeMe, Nibbles had a great adventure in the days before his death.
The woman said online that she and her son were playing with the tame mouse in their garden when the pet disappeared. They gave up the search and went back inside, very upset.
The woman was stunned when her elderly cat Zeus came in with Nibbles in his mouth, and put him down at her feet, unharmed. References |
