CROWN COURT FOR CLOWN, CAUGHT

A prankster who has been targeting innocent members of the public has been apprehended by the police.

Over the past month or so, his victims have been assaulted with a variety of objects, including foodstuffs, a rubber chicken and a squirting flower.

On two occasions, cryptic messages were left at the scene of the crime.

Now Bamboleo the Clown – real name Cyril Potts – has been taken into custody, following a successful sting operation mounted by Froghill Constabulary yesterday.

“Acting on a tip-off, we had one of our men pose as a window cleaner, working on a building in Cotillard Street,” said Detective Inspector Alan ‘The Hammer’ Hardman.

“As the officer bent over to rinse out his squeegee, the suspect emerged from a doorway, bucket in hand, clearly intending to douse him with confetti.

“That’s when we swooped. 

“It appears that the suspect was motivated by a grudge against circus owner Enzo Zeferelli and his activities were intended to tarnish the family name.”

The Inspector went on to explain how Potts, whose career with Zeferelli’s stretches back ten years, had formed a particularly close relationship with Leopold, one of the circus’ elephants.

An elephant which Zeferelli had threatened to have neutered.

Readers may remember Leopold as a highly excitable creature, who caused considerable damage last winter after he brought down the Big Top during a performance (Observer, February 6).

According to D.I. Hardman, having befriended Leopold and gained the animal’s trust, Potts set about ‘milking’ him for financial gain.

This practice involved Potts tiptoeing into the elephant's cage during the night. By placing a blanket scented with female elephant under the sleeping Leopold’s trunk, he would cause the animal to experience ‘exciting’ dreams.

Then, with the aid of a car jack, a bucket of lubricating jelly, a partially inflated rubber ring and a low-voltage electric current, Potts would skilfully induce the elephant to reach climax.

Asked why, D.I. Hardman responded: “He was bottling the animal’s semen and selling it.”

Elephant semen is highly prized in many Asian countries, where it is considered an effective cure for baldness, impotence, myopia, psoriasis and bow legs. Over the years, revealed the Inspector, Potts had built up a clandestine export business worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.

“However, two months ago, Mr. Zeferelli stumbled upon his little operation and threatened to neuter the animal in order to put a stop to it.

“And that’s what prompted Potts to take his revenge,” said the Inspector.

“The aim was to create such hostility towards Zeferelli’s Circus that the district council would revoke its entertainment licence, forcing the cancellation of the planned half-term holiday visit next month.”

Potts is due to appear before Froghill Crown Court next week, charged with multiple offences under the Gratuitous Slapstick Act of 1957.

The Observer says:

This report is symptomatic of a deplorable human tendency to use animals for the purposes of profit and entertainment.

By way of example, in the interests of promoting clean energy, we increasingly see pit bull terriers force-fed cabbage and Guinness so their accumulated flatulence can power wind turbines.

Who can honestly claim not to have experienced a momentary pang when, passing a wind farm, they glimpse Fido, high up on a gantry and whining piteously, his rear end clamped tight as his flatus rotates the blades?

In some countries, animal abuse is routine and widespread. Golfers in Japan use the egg-eating snake as a cover for their clubs. Muskrats, having exceptionally flexible rectal muscles, are much prized as slip-on shoes by the élite of Mexico City.

In certain parts of Africa, scorpions are reared on a diet of quinine and used by doctors to administer malaria injections. 

Here in the West, chic Parisian beauty salons press hedgehogs into service as exfoliant gloves and chameleons are given away free with LSD tablets in the drug deals of New York City.

It is this paper’s stated belief that only when we have banned animal exploitation in all its forms will we truly be able to refer to ourselves as ‘civilised’ human beings.