THIS is the moment a fox dropped a severed head after dragging it across a Croydon back garden.
Playwright David Trotter, 33, said he was shocked when he saw the ghoulish theatre prop – modelled from his own face – being pulled across the lawn in the animal's jaws.
He said: "I just stood there thinking: 'What on earth is going on, this can't be real'. I reached for my camera to try to get a picture with a flash and then it ran off.
"Normally the foxes around here are really timid so I was surprised to see it in the garden anyway. I went outside with my camera and walked right up to it.
"The fox had dragged the head a few metres away but it dropped it back to the floor and then just looked up at me and stared at me right in the eye."
Mr Trotter, who is directing a play in which a body which has been eaten by cougars is found in a remote cabin, had the head for the dead character cast from his own face using latex.
He put it outside on Sunday to make it look more weathered, only to see a cougar look-alike prowl across his lawn and fasten its jaws around his own fake neck.
He said: "It was unbelievably creepy – there were so many parallels with my play and, I mean, the severed head on the lawn was me – the fox was dragging my head off into its lair!"
Mr Trotter, who wrote his play The Bloody Bride for Croydon's Exit Theatre group, said he was tempted to replace the play's cougar for a fox after what had happened to him.
"My play is a murder mystery where a body is found mauled by cougars. It turns out eventually that the body was killed first and then eaten by the animals so it's really a whodunnit. I could easily swap it for foxes."
He added that the head had been made with make-up and special effects like fluff that looked like chest hair on it.
He said: "That was the part the fox was gnawing at when I opened the door. I didn't even think at the time it was maybe because it looked like an animal or human carcass – that's so disgusting.
"Maybe he thought it was a carcass and was trying to carry it off home. Whatever it was, it was a very well-nourished fox.
"The day after it happened was April Fool's day – I knew anyone I tried to tell wouldn't believe me. All my friends think it's hilarious that a fox tried to carry off a severed head that looks like me."
Mr Trotter's head will be fully repaired in time for the play's premiere at the Charles Cryer Studio Theatre in Carshalton on April 17.
