A man has spoken of his shock after two lads threw a dead squirrel into his car while he was in Sainsbury's. The bizarre incident took place at the Arnold Lane store in Gedling at around 4.20pm on Wednesday, June 8, when Theo Addae pulled into the store to quickly nip into the shop.
The 44-year-old criminal defence solicitor, who works for the Johnson Partnership and lives in Gedling, mistakenly thought he had shut his car windows, which had been open as it was a hot day. Mr Addae was surprised to notice that his car lights were flashing when he came out of the store, believing he may have accidentally pushed a button on his keys by mistake.
After putting his shopping in the boot, he was stunned to discover a dead squirrel on the passenger seat. He told Nottinghamshire Live: "I thought it might have jumped in there and had a heart attack or something and died - I had absolutely no idea how it had happened.
WARNING* Image of incident below some may find distressing
READ MORE: 'Blatant muppet' dad has car seized soon after son's bike taken
"I didn't know whether it was still alive at first." A passer-by helped Mr Addae to remove it from his car. Then, after checking with the CCTV operator at Sainsbury's, he was told that it appeared the squirrel had not got into the car of its own accord. Footage showed "two lads" approach the car and throw "a brown object" in the window, which caused the car's lights to start flashing.
"I just can't believe that kids would be walking around Gedling carrying round a dead squirrel," he continued. "I suppose it's nice to know that squirrels don't have a habit of jumping in car windows, as that would give quite a few people a fright. I imagine someone nearby must have seen these lads walking round with it, it's all just pretty unbelievable. You can't have people going round and doing that."
Amazingly, this isn't the first time something like this has happened in the East Midlands - there was a similar case reported in Derbyshire back in 2020. On that occasion, the remains of a dead squirrel were left on a pregnant woman's car twice in less than a week.
The woman lived in the village of South Normanton and even moved her car in between the two occasions the gruesome remains were left on her door handle. She said: "It crossed my mind that I was being targeted but I couldn't think of a reason why. We've lived here for five years, we get along with our neighbours - I don't know who we would have offended to do this.
"I was speaking to someone else who said they knew somebody on a nearby street had also had it done to them, so it doesn't sound like it's just us."
Mr Addae says that as the perpetrators cannot be identified from the CCTV footage, no action is likely to be taken by police.
Read more here:
