A severed cat's head found in a children's playground could be the work of the infamous 'UK Animal Killer' - five years after the police investigation was closed. A dismembered feline head was discovered placed carefully at the bottom of a popular kid’s climbing frame in Hackney, east London, last week.
This apparently deliberate act of putting the severed limbs - and especially the head - of slaughtered animals on 'display' is a key calling card for the notorious killer, campaigners said. A three-year probe by the Met Police into the deaths of hundreds of animals - mostly pet cats - began in 2015, dubbed Operation Takahe.
A Royal Veterinary College expert carried out 22 post-mortems on the alleged victims and found the animals were killed by blunt force trauma, then mutilated with either knives or gardening shears. But the investigation was shelved in 2018 when experts then concluded there was no human involvement as the animals were likely run over by vehicles, then chewed by scavenging foxes.
