The Unlikeliest Of Unlikely Stories!

The RSPCA launched an investigation after the dead fox was found locked in a cage in Brighton's Stanmer Park in November.

Animal cruelty? Well, not if this can be believed*....

Now an Argus reader, who wishes to remain anonymous, says he took animal to the park after he found it dead in his garden.

Locked in a cage? Did he think it might rise again after three days?

When he found the creature dead he sought advice from a friend, a naturist (Ed: I'm assuming he meant a 'naturalist', but then, this is Brighton, after all...), who recommended that he put the carcass in a cage to protect its body.

The reader said he had arranged for his friend to pick up the fox’s remains from Stanmer Park, which they both regularly visited.

Right, and the cage was because...?

His friend wanted to then bury the fox in the ground, concealed in the cage to prevent it being dug up and eaten by badgers.

It's a big cage. It'd need a bigger hole. A man digging an enormous hole in a public park. Didn't they think this might look suspicious?

He said: “My friend is a man who loves nature and wanted to eventually recover the fox’s skull, to display to other naturists.

“The fox was one the young ones which frequented my garden in Brighton where titbits are provided.

"Naturally I was upset to lose the fox and I had to consider ways to dispose of it so I sought the advice of my friend who loves nature.”

Rather than someone experienced in removing bodies? Please don't tell me you can't find one of those in Brighton!

He said: “I put the fox’s body in an old animal cage, secured it with cable ties and thought this was over.

"However, he failed to pick up the fox that day and it had gone by the time he searched for it.”

Why didn't he just meet you?

“Our plan had failed but the fox had not been caught in a trap.

"It was caged to prevent foxes and badgers digging it up in my friend's garden, which he himself intended to do in years to come, to retrieve the skeleton to display to other naturists.”

I knew this would come in handy again:


*Reader, it cannot.