THIS fox last night loped past the house where the twin tots were attacked in their cots.

The bold predator was snapped in fading daylight as the girls' parents maintained their bedside vigils.

And the chilling sight in Hackney, East London, was echoed in towns throughout Britain as The Sun investigated the plague of the urban fox.

To many the fox is beautiful, persecuted and romantic, forever having to rely on its wits to evade cruel hunters.

Vermin

To others it is nothing more than vermin, infesting our city streets like never before.

The horrific animal attack on twin baby girls as they slept on Saturday night has polarised views more than ever, yet urban foxes are nothing new.

They have inhabited our towns and cities since the 1930s, when there was a huge expansion of low-density housing.

This created suburbs of semi-detached houses, many with big gardens which the rural foxes quickly came to see as ideal habitats.

Only two weeks before the attack on nine-month-old Lola and Isabella Koupparis, TV's Springwatch presenter Simon King dressed all in black to stalk the city streets of Bristol at night to show viewers the "hidden" life of foxes.

He needn't have bothered dressing up. Almost anyone who lives in a town will have seen foxes, and not just at night.

Latest estimates suggest there are 33,000 urban foxes in the UK.

Scavengers

Food for them is everywhere, from discarded takeaways to piled-up bin bags.

Any household meat waste left around is perfect prey for the scavengers.

Many have even become confident enough with humans to be hand fed.

Such familiarity may be the start of problems, say animal experts.

However cute they may look, foxes are naturally wild predators and may attack if cornered.

If denied a ready source of food they may look for other alternatives.

Will Moore, a fox control expert from Fox Solutions, warned: "Don't feed them. If they are being fed by people they have no fear and that's why you get instances such as the one last weekend."

Most local authorities have given up trying to control the animals because as soon as you remove one, another will move into the territory.

The urban fox has no natural predator - though the car is its enemy. The RSPCA says there is no evidence of an increase in numbers in towns.

However, the London Wildlife Trust estimate that 60 per cent of the capital's fox population dies every year - around half killed on the roads - and yet the more foxes are killed the more nature compensates, with the breeding rate of vixens reportedly increasing.

m.phillips@the-sun.co.uk