As usual, my husband and I took our dogs for a run, ending on the football pitches before you cross Prittle Brook to Warners Bridge rugby club.

It was a lovely sunny Sunday evening. Lots of rabbits were out in the fields and the football ground. As we turned to go back there he was - the dog fox we called Redfire. He strolled across the pitch in front of us.

As the farmers only grow crops in the surrounding fields, foxes are the farmers' friend as they keep the rabbit numbers down.

This fox has his den in our horse field and his young clubs would watch us carefully as we walked by, peeping out from behind an old log.

Nearly every day we watched Redfire stalk or go by with a rabbit, back to his cubs. We would sit on the riverbank and watch the comings and goings of the foxes and the other wildlife in that little oasis.

Walking the same route another day, another flash of burnished red gold caught my eye on the bank by the hedge.

I ran over and there, lying dead, was Redfire.

I checked him all over, a pellet hole from one of those high powered air rifles had hit him in his stomach.

What a brave person, not only has he killed an animal who was no threat to himself, but left him to die slowly and in agony.

A head shot for a clean kill was clearly too small a target for this inept idiot.

Well done, you lowlife.

If it was you I saw two weeks ago in the sports field with your telescopic sighted rifle, then know next time I see you, I am calling the police on my mobile.

If children playing in the street with toy guns can have armed police turn up, then you with your rifle on a football pitch can have the same.

Sheila Dowell
Sutton Court Drive
Rochford