Giraffe injured as pair threatened animals in zoo raid

TWO men have been sentenced after breaking into a zoo, throwing a bottle at a giraffe’s head and causing a disturbance that left penguins with “anxiety”.

Nathan Daniels, 21, cut the barbed wire fence at Marwell Zoo, near Eastleigh, Hants, before he and Bradley Green carried out the attack.

Daniels pleaded guilty to damaging the penguins’ enclosure while Green, 24, admitted damaging an enclosure containing giraffes when he hurled the bottle during the night-time raid on Feb 15 2021. The zoo was closed to the public at the time because of the pandemic.

The court heard that several disinfectant bottles were thrown into enclosures, one of the two men kicked out at a tiger behind a fence, and a giraffe was left with two deep gashes to its leg as a “consequence” of the distress.

Yesterday at Winchester Crown Court, they were each handed a 12-month community service order consisting of 120 hours’ unpaid work and ordered to pay £750 compensation each to the zoo.

Judge Richard Parkes KC said the pair acted “with extraordinary stupidity”.