Vicious battle as foxes fight it out in north London garden

Snarling and with their teeth bared, two urban foxes today battled it out just yards from a north London family home.

This morning's standoff, in photographer Ken Lennox's back garden in Muswell Hill, left one of the animals seriously hurt.

Lennox said: "We're used to seeing foxes but I've never seen anything like this. They were really going for it hammer and tongs, trying to bite each other's necks. They were rolling around and fighting up on their hind legs."

After 20 minutes one of them was left looking badly injured lying in some long grass. He said: "It looked in a bad way. I saw it just sitting in the grass looking very poorly. It eventually got up and left after about 20 minutes."

The pictures come as London faces up to a growing problem of urban foxes. Last month nine-month-old twin girls were apparently mauled by a fox as they slept in their cots in east London. As many as 10,000 foxes may be living in the London area.