Who killed Bugs Bunny?

8:57am Thursday 31st January 2008

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The rather grisly chalk outline of a corpse greeted children in the playground of Mount Pleasant Lane School in Bricket Wood.

It transpired on closer inspection that the corpse was that of a rather large bunny rabbit and rumours quickly circulated the school that the lovable but rather mischievous cartoon character Bugs Bunny had been the victim of a vicious attack. A post mortem later in the day confirmed that to be true.

The bunny outline was found along with a number of other items, including a rounders bat, wallet containing cash and a torn photograph, an airline ticket, two carrots, a single black glove, a set of keys, a length of rope and an address book.

The scene was set by teacher David Funnell who had asked Year 5 and 6 pupils to be journalists for the day and to investigate and report what had happened.

Before they could do that, Watford Observer editorial manager Frazer Ansell gave them some advice on how to go about their job.

He gave the 90 children a brief round up of the newspaper's history and development and a break down of roles within the newsroom.

He also gave them tips on how to gather information, how to interview and write their stories and reminded them to check every fact and re-read their stories several times before submitting them for publication.

The "cub" reporters were then invited to a quickly convened press conference chaired by Mr Funnell who answered their questions about the strange events that had taken place at the school.

They were then invited to examine the evidence and interview witnesses before being sent off with their books full of notes to write their stories.

Mr Funnell was delighted with the way the special project went. He said: "The children were all very excited but they took it very seriously.

"At the press conference they asked some great questions and tried hard to get all the answers down in their notebooks.

"We told them they had to report what had happened rather than solve the crime of who killed Bugs Bunny, and they did an excellent job in doing that.

"It's a lot harder to get the boys to be creative when it comes this sort of thing, but this project really caught their imaginations."

The best stories were short-listed and reporters at the Observer were given the unenviable task of picking the eventual winner, which was a joint effort by Sam Mortin, Jamie Bailey and Jonathan Marshall.

The trio of aspiring journalists were presented with a Watford Observer front page containing their story at a special assembly at the school on Wednesday.

All the children who participated in the event also received certificates to mark their efforts.

Frazer said: "The children produced some excellent work and clearly listened very hard to the advice they were given and the evidence they were presented with.

"The stories were very readable and, although they may well have libelled the two key murder suspects, Elmer Fudd and Daffy Duck, I'm sure these children will go a long way."