New home found for bunny used for terrorising shoppers

A rabbit which was allegedly swung by its ears down Auckland's Queen St is to be given a new home in the company of another lop-eared bunny which recently lost his mate.

SPCA inspector Vicki Border this week visited Graham Paul Brown, 53, who is accused of swinging the animal at pedestrians while verbally abusing them last month.

He told them he was given the rabbit by a friend named David who had bought him from a pet store on Dominion Rd.

He kept the bunny, which he named David, but was subsequently called Larry by the SPCA, in his Housing New Zealand apartment in central Auckland, for about a week in a cardboard box, grooming him and feeding him scraps.

However, he knew he wasn't allowed to keep animals in the apartment and was on his way to setting David free near the waterfront.

"He said, 'I saw some other rabbits at the old Railway Station so I thought I'd let him out there so he could have some friends'," Ms Border said.

"He seemed really genuine. He said, 'I know what I did was wrong. I did take care of him, I used to groom him. I don't know what came over me'. He did say sorry about the incident. I told him it was quite lucky Larry was all right."

Ms Border said Larry would be rehoused with a man from One Tree Hill who had kept lop-eared rabbits for several years. One of his two rabbits had died recently and he wanted Larry to keep the other one company.

The SPCA had received several calls from members of the public about Larry. "People have been claiming he's their rabbit," Ms Border said.

"But the timing and the dates doesn't really work. Some didn't even know if he was a boy or girl."

* Brown is due in the Auckland District Court next Wednesday on charges of assaulting a police officer, behaving in a disorderly manner and the ill-treatment of an animal.