Police probe after horse's tail cut off

Published on Thursday 24 July 2008 10:59

POLICE are investigating after a horse had part of its tail cut off at a farm in the Lothians.

More than a foot of the animal's tail was removed during the incident, which took place in Currie on June 5.

Officers have been unable to locate the people involved and said they are not ruling out any possibilities regarding the motive for the attack.

A spokeswoman for the Scottish SPCA said: "Horse hair does have some monetary value as it is used in the making of purses and sporrans, so it's possible the tail was removed to sell the hair on.

"We have heard stories about tails being removed by devil worshippers to use in their rituals.

"There was a lot of speculation that a physical attack on a horse in the past may have been linked to Satanism."

She added: "One of our officers did go out to check on the horse to see if we could carry out our own investigation, but eventually handed the matter over to police."