When Barney met Mabel, there was an instant and fatal chemical reaction.
On Tuesday night the doberman pinscher guard dog, after six years' blameless service, went berserk: within minutes Mabel, a 1909 German-made Steiff teddy bear once owned by Elvis Presley, more recently the pride and joy of an English aristocrat, lay mortally wounded.
Barney went on to rampage through hundreds of rare teddies, all on loan to the Wookey Hole Caves tourist attraction in Somerset, southwest England, and so valuable that the insurers had insisted on a guard dog to protect the premises at night. The aftermath, according to shocked staff, was appalling: shattered limbs, gouged eyes, ears torn off and pools of sawdust everywhere.
PHOTO: AP
"Up to 100 bears were involved in the massacre," Daniel Medley, general manager of Wookey Hole Caves, said on Tuesday night. "It was a dreadful scene."
Barney's mortified handler, Greg West, took 10 minutes to get the dog back under control.
"I still can't believe what happened," he said. "Either there was a rogue scent of some kind on Mabel which switched on Barney's deepest instincts, or it could have been jealousy: I was just stroking Mabel and saying what a nice little bear she was."
Mabel usually lives at Maunsel House, a 13th century manor house belonging to Sir Benjamin Slade.
Sir Benjamin, who inherited the estate in 1982, recently announced he was conducting a worldwide DNA search to find the closest heir to the estate: so far he has received over 15,000 claims, including one from a man currently residing in a New Delhi prison.
He collects Elvis Presley memorabilia, and bought the bear at a Memphis auction for ?40,000 (US$40,000).
Medley had the unenviable job of phoning him to explain, as well as he could.
"It was one of the most embarrassing experiences of my life. I had a very brief conversation with him, and it's fair to say he was not best pleased. He sent around one of his men this morning to collect the body," Medley said.
He is anticipating another very awkward conversation: dozens of the damaged bears belonged to another private collector, currently out of the country on holiday.
"I hope she doesn't read about it in the papers, or she'll be straight back on the next plane," he said.
Staff were still working last night to restore the display, which is expected to reopen this morning.
"We have asked the security firm not to send us that dog again," Medley said.
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday took to the streets of Spain’s eastern city of Valencia to mark the first anniversary of floods that killed 229 people and to denounce the handling of the disaster. Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on regional government head Carlos Mazon to resign over what they said was the slow response to one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades. “People are still really angry,” said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old government worker who took part with her husband and two young daughters. “Why weren’t people evacuated? Its incomprehensible,” she said. Mazon’s
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
With much pomp and circumstance, Cairo is today to inaugurate the long-awaited Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), widely presented as the crowning jewel on authorities’ efforts to overhaul the country’s vital tourism industry. With a panoramic view of the Giza pyramids plateau, the museum houses thousands of artifacts spanning more than 5,000 years of Egyptian antiquity at a whopping cost of more than US$1 billion. More than two decades in the making, the ultra-modern museum anticipates 5 million visitors annually, with never-before-seen relics on display. In the run-up to the grand opening, Egyptian media and official statements have hailed the “historic moment,” describing the
RSS