A QUIET corner of rural England was recovering yesterday after a bruising encounter with Boris the badger.

Five people were put in hospital and two police officers were sent scurrying for cover after the bad-tempered creature went on a 48-hour rampage through Evesham in Worcestershire.

As the last victim returned from hospital yesterday, after having skin grafts to his legs and an arm, residents described Boris’s arrival as being like a scene from a horror film.

Michael Fitzgerald, 67, a retired BBC producer from the Greenhill area of the town, was attacked when he heard noises coming from his garage and went to investigate.

After tentatively raising the door he spotted Boris and beat a hasty retreat. But the badger headed him off and attacked, sinking its fangs into his arms and legs before scuttling off into the night.

His wife, Pam, speaking as Mr Fitzgerald was due to undergo plastic surgery for his inch-deep wounds at Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham, said that the badger had struck without warning. “It was like something out of a horror movie, he was bleeding so badly,” she said.

“To hear your husband screaming and shouting in such pain, it was horrifying. He is very badly shaken up and he’s going to be permanently scarred.”

Boris, 2½ft long and weighing in at 15kg, had earlier bitten two teenagers and a man and a woman who were walking their dogs.

He also showed no respect for the law. Two police officers called by residents who feared that a prowler was in their midst were forced to jump on to the bonnet of their patrol car when the snarling animal charged straight at them.

The badger’s rampage eventually ended on Saturday when he was caught under a crate by Michael Weaver, chairman of the Worcestershire Badger Society.

Afterwards Mr Weaver said that the badger’s behaviour was unprecedented. “I have never heard of anything like this in 24 years of work with badgers throughout the UK.”

Boris, a 15-month-old male, is believed to have escaped, or to have been stolen, from a nearby wildlife centre, where he had been kept in an enclosure with another badger.

Mr Weaver said that because the badger was domesticated he had not run away from people when frightened by them, but had instead decided to attack. “In the wild badgers are fiercely territorial and will attack other badgers, but they will not normally attack human beings.

“Boris may have been happy in his domesticated environment where he was used to people around him, but when he was taken out of those surroundings his wild territorial instincts came to the fore.

“While a wild badger would run off on picking up human scent, Boris had experience of people. He reacted entirely naturally and saw the person off his territory by attacking them.” After catching Boris Mr Weaver handed him to a local vet. The badger was later put down on medical advice.

“The real tragedy about Boris is that it shows that people shouldn’t try to tame wildlife or treat them as pets, because they are not,” Mr Weaver said.

Caroline Gould, who works at the Vale Wildlife Visitor Centre, where Boris lived, said that the badger had been kept in an enclosure after being given to the centre as a hand-reared baby.

“Sadly we couldn’t put him out in the wild because he was already domesticated,” she said, adding that Boris had always been amiable, if a little moody. “It is very, very sad. He must have been very frightened and hungry to have behaved like he did.”

Ms Gould added that Boris, who was naturally nocturnal and often not seen for days at a time, appeared to have been stolen, set free, or escaped of his own volition.

Tim Thomas, senior scientific officer in the RSPCA’s wildlife department, said that the badger’s plight demonstrated the real dangers of rearing such animals in domestic environments. “This is a prime example of why we should leave wildlife alone unless you really know what you are doing,” he said.

The National Federation of Badger Groups advises people not to try to feed badgers in case they get bitten. It has no record, however, of wild badgers attacking people, except when injured or trapped.

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