Daily Mail

Fox bites girl, 3, in upstairs bedroom

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‘Could’ve been so much worse’

A GIRL of three was attacked in bed by an urban fox that crept into her bedroom.

Heidi Cooper screamed in pain as the animal sank its teeth into her arm after sneaking through an open door.

The attack was only stopped when her father George heard screaming from the room, where Heidi and her fourmonth-old sibling sleeps.

Mr Cooper, 37, said that his daughter was left ‘petrified’ by the incident, which left her with puncture wounds and scratches on her hand and arm. ‘I just can’t believe it,’ he added, saying that he thought fox attacks were an urban legend.

The attack unfolded at the family’s home in south- east London, last Tuesday, after Mr Cooper put his daughter to bed. The back doors had been left open to air out the house during the heatwave.

‘I had lain there for half an hour and read her a story,’ Mr Cooper said. ‘I took my four-month- old baby downstairs and then their mum came home from work.’

Mr Cooper was watching a film in the living room when he was alerted by noises from the children’s bedroom.

He said: ‘Heidi occasional­ly wakes up in the night but as I got closer to the top of the stairs I heard the panic in her voice.’ When Mr Cooper turned on the lights he saw the animal jump from the bed as Heidi began to scream ‘fox’. He locked the child in an adjacent bedroom while the fox darted out of the house through the open door.

‘The four-month- old baby could have been up there with her. It could have been so much worse,’ he said.

‘Heidi was obviously petrified at the time but she’s been amazing,’ he added. ‘She says “the bad fox might come back” but I’ve been sleeping in with her now.’ While fox attacks are uncommon, there is concern that litter is encouragin­g the population of the animals to rise.

Foxes were first spotted in a UK town in the 1930s. A study by Brighton and Reading universiti­es last year found there are just under 150,000 urban foxes in England – up from around 33,000 in the 1990s.

It found the highest concentrat­ion of urban foxes in the UK is in Bournemout­h, with 23 per square kilometre.

The RSPCA describes fox attacks as ‘extremely rare’ but says foxes can become ‘quite bold’ if left food.

In February, seven-monthold Raeya Wyatt was left with puncture wounds on her hand and foot after being attacked by a fox at her home in Plymouth.

And in East London in 2010, twins Isabella and Lola Koupparis were left ‘covered in blood’ after a fox attack, in what their mother described as a ‘living nightmare’.

 ??  ?? Scavenger: A red fox
Scavenger: A red fox

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