FT263

The media’s latest folk devil, it seems, is a member of the animal kingdom. The newspapers are currently full of stories about the threat posed by urban foxes after a freak incident in Hackney, east London, saw a pair of babies (Lola and Isabella Koupparis, aged nine months) mauled by a fox while asleep in their cots. Their mother described the incident as “a living nightmare”, while other residents worried that they might be next. One local, health trainer Michael Para, believed that “Something should be done about them… They’ve terrorised our garden.” (D.Telegraph, 7 June 2010). As we went to press, fearing for Mr Para’s petunias, a blurry police photo of the ‘suspect’ was doing the rounds; it showed a young cub “alert and staring at the officer through the glass of the sliding door” ([PA] 9 June 2010).