St Theresa’s Church in Totton is latest to be targeted as severed deer head left in doorway

ANOTHER severed deer head has been left at a New Forest church alongside an upturned cross.

Police were called to St Theresa’s Church on Commercial Road in Totton last Friday after the grisly discovery.

A spokesperson for the Hampshire force told the A&T: “We were called at 3.23pm on Friday 14th February to a report of an animal carcass being found outside St Theresa’s Church.

“This has been removed and enquiries are ongoing.”

The incident is the latest in a spate of animal carcasses left at churches across the New Forest. Last month, a Lyndhurst mother taking her children to school was forced to step around pools of blood after a similar incident.

The severed head was left at St Michael and All Angels Church on Lyndhurst High Street, which was branded “barbaric” by the mum.

The church was also targeted in 2021 when a deer’s head was again left in the porch.

Last May, Commoners Defence Association chair Andrew Parry-Norton found a flock of his sheep mutilated in Cadnam – which he described as “horrific” and “devastating”.

In May 2023 commoner Patrick Langdown told the A&T he feared occult-style animal killings had returned to the area after one of his lambs was found dumped and with its throat slit at Long Cross Pond, near Fritham.

In January of 2023 animal entrails – thought to include hearts – surrounded by a circle of 30 candles were arranged at the top of a trig point of Stagbury Hill, near Bramshaw.

In December 2022, Bramshaw vicar the Rev David Bacon warned locals to stay vigilant after a dead cat and fox were left at the 12th century St Peter’s Church, on Judds Hill.

In 2019 vandals also sprayed the church walls with phallic and Satanic symbols.

Later that year police launched an investigation after sheep and cattle were found stabbed and sprayed with markings in the space of five days within a few miles of each other in the Bramshaw area.

The A&T has contacted St Theresa’s Church for comment.