Moment appalled bystanders confront man after he 'breaks goose's neck' in public park - as police launch probe

 This is the moment a man is confronted by appalled bystanders after a goose allegedly had its neck broken in a public park.

Police are investigating a report of animal cruelty at Ward End Park in the suburbs of Birmingham on October 19 after a video of the distressed bird circulated online.

The clip sees a hooded man staring blankly at the camera with a box – containing bread to attract geese, according to witnesses.

'He's feeding ducks [sic] and he has just killed one,' the person filming the video says. 'He's just broken the duck's neck [sic].'

Panning to the goose, the disturbing footage shows the animal slumped on the turf while still twitching.

'This is what he has done to it,' the cameraman adds as the bird lets out several pained squeals.

The man – wearing a navy Nike hoodie, black coat and trousers – then calmly picks up his box and continues staring down the lens.

The alleged goose killing comes just days after two opportunistic thieves were filmed picking up a much-loved pet rabbit which was later found dumped in a car park. 

The pair were caught on camera stealing eight-year-old Peter from his front garden pen in Hull, East Yorkshire, on Saturday afternoon.

They were seen laughing and joking and could be heard saying, 'We'll make shashlik out of it,' as they walked off with the distressed rabbit.

West Midlands Police confirmed officers are probing the Birmingham video as part of their investigation into reports of cruelty towards a goose in the park.

A spokesman for the force said: 'We received a report of animal cruelty at Ward End Park in Birmingham on 19 October and are making enquiries to establish the circumstances around what happened.

'Officers are working with partners including the park's management and the local authority and are looking to speak to anyone who might have seen what happened and might know who was responsible.'

The clip garnered outrage on social media with users claiming community officers had warned the man in the clip about similar behaviour in the days running up to the incident.

Animal rights activists told the Daily Mail the luring technique allegedly used in the video is occasionally used by farm poachers but is rarely deployed brazenly in broad daylight.

Animal cruelty investigator Joey Alexander said he had recently conducted an investigation into a phenomenon which saw people at a large free-range turkey farm in Essex taking the birds by the neck and swinging them in circles, before throwing them in the bin.

Mr Alexander insisted the cruelty of what appeared to be happening in the video rivals these previous incidents, especially the fact the alleged killer appears to lure the animal with food.

'There are just shocking and callous parts of this. The bird was likely still conscious when it was flailing on the floor. It is a horrific act of serious animal cruelty.

'It is completely needless and there is no reason for someone to do that. I can understand why the whole public is sickened by it. Only a monster could do that.'

The animal rights activist added that he thought the individual in the clip looked 'disturbed' and did not seem to 'express normal human emotion'.

He said: 'I have heard stories like this before of people killing wild animals in parks to take them home and eat them. I have not actually seen someone doing it.'

The latest set of statistics showed that reports of cruelty involving wild birds hit a five-year peak in summer 2025, according to the RSPCA.

Some 359 incidents involving wild birds – including 26 in the West Midlands alone – were reported during July and August 2025 – almost double the 179 received during the same period in 2024, the charity revealed.

The RSPCA added that this year was shaping up to be just as worrying, with the charity having already received 474 reports involving cruelty to wild birds as of July.

The birds most commonly targeted included pigeons, corvids (such as crows, magpies and ravens), gulls, swans and ducks, with many incidents involving catapults, air weapons and other deliberate acts of violence. 

A spokesman for the RSPCA said: 'It's extremely distressing to hear about an attack on a goose. We'd urge anyone with first-hand information about this incident to contact us on 0300 1234 999.

'All wild birds are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and it is illegal to deliberately kill, injure or take one, except under licence.'

Mr Alexander added that he believes the consequences for harming animals are insufficient and that people might be deterred if they were made more severe.

The current maximum sentence for animal cruelty is five years' imprisonment, an unlimited fine, or both. 

'It feels like a brazen act that really highlights the fact that laws protecting animals in this country are not strong enough,' he said. 'People like this need to be made an example of.'

The animal cruelty investigator said that the normal human emotion when confronted with such an incident would be to intervene, but added that the person in the video might have been 'dangerous', in which case it can be best to keep one's distance.

He also expressed concerns that cases of such cruelty seemed to be on the rise in the UK. 

'There's a cultural mentality towards animals that they are here to serve our ends,' he said. 'But if someone overtly abuses an animal in front of us, it hits home too hard and we react like this but when it is hidden we are not going to emotionally react.'

Single mother Amy Ulliott, 38, and her teenage children were finally reunited with their pet on Sunday after being alerted to a small brown rabbit answering to Peter's description had been found in a car park around a mile away.

Humberside Police are investigating the theft, with Ms Ulliott claiming the CCTV shows them speaking Russian and potentially 'planning to make a stew' out of her pet.

Ms Ulliott said her family were shocked to find the family's pet was missing when they got home and were even more disturbed when they viewed CCTV which showed Peter being callously handled by the ears before being carried away.

Ms Ulliott, a carer, told the Daily Mail: 'No one with an ounce of humanity would do a thing like that to a defenceless rabbit, when I saw what they had done I felt physically sick and had very little hope that I would ever see Peter alive again.'

The family immediately called Humberside Police to report the theft and Ms Ulliott and her family took to the streets to search for him themselves, also posting the shocking video on social media.

The person who eventually found him had taken him in and given him food and water while trying to find his owners – and then, seeing missing posts, got in touch with the good news.

She said: 'Both of them were speaking in what sounded like Russian. And we've been told that one of the men may be called Oleg.'

Ms Ulliott said when she uploaded the footage, she was contacted by a Russian speaker who said he had been able to translate what the men were saying to each other.

She added: 'He told us that one man said to the other, "We'll make shashlik out of it".

'It seems they were saying it was their intention to have him on a skewer like a kebab, which is just a horrifying thought.'

The Daily Mail showed the clip to a Russian translator who confirmed that the language being spoken was Russian, possibly with a Ukrainian accent.

They said the man who grabbed Peter, turned to his friend and said: 'Take a picture of me.'

He then sings a tune and says 'whoa' when the rabbit kicks out at him.