A California man has reportedly suffered a gruesome demise after an accident involving a metal-enhanced cock.

José Luis Ochoa, 35, of Lamont, California, a spectator at a cockfight who had previously been fined for owning or training an animal for fighting, died after being stabbed in the leg in Tulare County, the Grauniad soberly relates.

According to a member of the local sheriff's department, Ochoa and other men fled when police arrived at the scene of a cockfight. "I have never seen this type of incident," Sgt Martin King told a Californian newspaper.

Ochoa had been stabbed in the right calf by a knife attached to the leg of one of the roosters. He was declared dead in hospital two hours after sustaining the injury on 30 January.

He had reportedly paid $370 (£230) in fines last year after pleading no contest to one count of owning or training an animal for fighting.

A lesson for all, we can surely agree, who enjoy participating in or attending events in which animals are forced to maim and kill each other for their owners' profit. All further puns, moral outrage, flagrant instances of not reading the article properly and rushing straight to complain, requests for new keyboards etc to the usual address. ®