Residents demand Asbo for sex-mad badgers

They hold wild get-togethers, regularly fight each other and wake neighbours with noisy late-night passionate encounters outside.

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Numbering at least 40, they have damaged gardens in the suburb where they live. And worst of all, they are above the law.

The culprits are a colony of badgers, whose protected status means little can be done to stop their antics.

Residents in the Gleadless area ofSheffield are at their wits' end after seven years of havoc.

Richard Oldham, 43, of Kew Crescent, said the badgers first dug holes all over his lawn, then dug out the footings of decking costing £2,000, which later had to be demolished.

Next they dug a massive hole under the garden shed used by his two-year-old daughter Olivia as a playhouse.

And then his garden fence fell down because the badgers dug out the concrete posts.

He said: "My whole garden is undermined by their tunnels. I daren't let Olivia play out – if she doesn't fall down a hole, they are likely to attack her protecting their pups."

Mr Oldham contacted South Yorkshire Badger Group but was told he couldn't do anything to disturb the animals, which have pups at this time of year.

Once they have reared their pups he can apply for a licence from the Department for the Environment to install badger gates at his property.

Then, after several months monitoring the gates to ensure the badgers have all left his garden, he will be able to install permanent barriers.

All this will have to be done under the supervision of a Government-appointed consultant at a cost of several thousand pounds.

But Mr Oldham, who is disabled after a stroke, said he cannot afford the work.

Even if he could, the barriers don't work, according to 73-year-old John Cooper of nearby Smithfield Road.

Mr Cooper, whose garden is separated from Mr Oldham's by a brook, said the animals wreck the vegetables at his £250,000 bungalow.

"I've put in all the barriers but nothing works –they get round them eventually," he said.

"There was never a problem until around seven years ago when I fell down a hole in my lawn almost breaking my leg.

"Now there are 19 badger setts within 100 yards. Each provides home to a male and female and at this time of year they have pups – the badgers are taking over.

"I love to see them play, but they can be quite scary, especially when they are fighting. One night there was a hell of a noise and I woke up to find one large badger had been killed by a rival badger in my garden."

Mr Cooper's next-door neighbour Michael Broomhead, 60, a retired butcher, said: "The are very powerful animals and dig huge holes looking for worms. They have felled three trees by digging under them, trampled all my crops and they make a terrible racket at night.

"When they are having sex they howl and scream and when they are fighting they make terrible blood-curdling noises as if they are being murdered."

Monica Ward of the South Yorkshire Badger Group said: "It is illegal to interfere with their setts. All we can do is advise people on the best way to make their gardens badger-proof.

"We have done all we can to help out. We wrote to 100 houses advising people not to feed the badgers as it encourages them."