In Nightmare Pictures: The Fox Attack In East London
MEET Pauline Koupparis, the mother of two twin baby girls, Lola and Isabella, who were mauled by a fox at their home in Homerton, east London on Saturday night. The story goes that the fox crept into the house and mauled the two nine-month-old girls as they slept. The girls are being treated at Royal London Hospital and their condition is stable.
If it bleeds it leads. So goes the newspaper mantra. So. On the cover of the Daily Express:
“FOX ATTACK WAS LIKE A HORROR MOVIE”
This was “mum’s nightmare”.
Only it wasn’t a nightmare. It was real.
The Mail echoes the Express:
“Distraught mother relives nightmare moment she turned on bedroom light to find baby twins mauled in their cots.”
Want to know the details? Want to be horrified?
On its front page, the Sun gives a trailer for the Fox Attack: The Movie:
“One side of her face is beautiful…the other’s like a horror movie…”
Before the horror, a little scene setting in the Mirror:
The couple dialled 999 from their £800,000 three-storey Victorian terraced house in Hackney, East London at around 10pm Saturday.
Dad is a “TV executive”.
Mum is “a former merchandising head for British Home Stores”.
It was a calm and balmy night…
“We’d had a barbecue in the garden, we have sliding doors, we had them open because it was a warm evening.”
“We watched Britain’s Got Talent. It finished and we heard the girls crying.”
Damien Fletcher chimes in:
They are creatures of fable and legend – and they’ll probably be in your back garden tonight.
Janice Turner whispers:
Is there a creature more sinister than the urban fox?
Peter Mandelson. The leader of Hamas? Gary Glitter? Derrick Bird? Stephen Griffiths? Sooty?
Mrs Koupparis enters. In the Express, she’s 41. In the Sun, she’s 40. The facts are building. Says she:
“We heard the girls cry. I thought it was quite a funny cry, a muffled cry. Very pained. I went into the room and I saw some blood on Isabella’s cot. I thought she had a nose bleed. I put on the light and I saw a fox and it wasn’t even scared of me, it just looked me straight in the eye. I started screaming when I ¬realised Lola was also covered in blood.”
You’re next. Towsnfolk mass.
Peter Crowden, chairman of the National Pest Technicians Association, which has almost 1,000 members, said: “I am not surprised to hear of this. The situation is out of control and we could see more attacks on domestic pets and even babies.”
A local woman approaches:
But grandmother Fatma Kabay, 52, a housewife who lives on the same street as the Koupparis family, said: “Foxes are a big problem around here and terrorise our streets. There’s loads of them everywhere, especially at night – and they’re not scared of humans at all. I have grandchildren and I don’t want them playing outside in case they get attacked by a fox.”
Panic!
Cats are no match for a fully grown fox; traffic just a minor irritant. Dogs are no problem either – even dogs such as Mr Walsh’s 11-stone Rhodesian Ridgeback, Alfie.
In the Star, one lone voice calls for calm. Wildlife expert John Bryant speaks:
“They smell food and go through an open door but it is freakish that a fox should attack someone.”
Be afraid! Freakish foxes are everyehere!
Posted: 8th, June 2010 | In: Reviews Comments (22) | TrackBack | Permalink
