Warning – some readers may find the footage distressing
A Hull mum-of-two has described her horror at discovering two people walked off with her family’s beloved pet rabbit – holding him by the ears – in broad daylight. Amy Grace, 38, had gone to the shops with her son, Harvey, leaving her 15 year-old daughter, Faith,in their house on St Pauls Street in Hull.
On her return she discovered pet rabbit Peter was missing, and having searched everywhere, checked outside CCTV footage to find two people loitering just outside her garden gate, with one holding Peter by his ears as he writhes to set himself free. The video shows one of the people videoing the episode as they walk away with Peter.
“All I could do was scream and cry when I saw it,” said Amy, who has had Peter for eight years.
“We’d spent a good couple of hours looking over the area for him, with torches and in parks, people’s gardens and in the flats nearby,” Amy added. “The kids suggested I have a look at the CCTV to see if he’d gone in the house and hidden somewhere or whether he was hiding in the garden.”
Peter, who is nine and suffers with gut stasis, normally lives in the back garden and needs medicine three times daily. But work in the back and the need for him to move around freely given his condition meant Peter was roaming at the front of the property, where a pallet had been placed against the front gate to prevent anybody entering.
Amy, who has been joined in the search by her brother, added: “You can see him trying to fight in the video, which is what broke my heart. He fought so hard.”
Having searched hard for Peter, Amy claims she has been told there was an attempt to sell Peter to one of her neighbours, who assumed it was a wild rabbit.
“The likelihood of him being alive is slim to none, given that he relies on medication at the minute,” said Amy. “And given that they had him by the ears and were swinging him about, I’m going to guess that his neck was broken pretty fast.”
Amy has contacted Humberside Police about the incident and her children have shared the footage on their social media accounts. She says the family “just want him home” and has called out the perpetrators for their inhumanity.
She added: “I can’t believe how cruel people can be to something so innocent.”
Did you know you can make Hull Live a preferred source of Hull news in Google, which will mean you get more of our breaking news, exclusives, and must-read stories straight away? Here’s more information about what this means and how to do it – you can also do it straight away by clicking here.