'Pig killer needs help'

Mr Blunkett said he fears the "horrors" the killer – if he is a young man – could commit in later life.

The Sheffield Brightside MP used the stomach-churrning case to highlight the need for health bosses to not reduce spending on mental health services – particularly for the young.

Changes to the way central funds are handed out has caused some Primary Care Trusts to make "severe cutbacks in mental health help for the young," he said.

He added: "Nothing could be worse. It is vital to intervene at the earliest possible moment when youngsters go through emotional and psychological traumas."

Visitors and volunteers at Heeley City Farm were left horror-struck by a sickening attack last month, in which a litter of day-old piglets were slaughtered.

It is believed whoever was responsible clambered over a fence before making their way into a sty where the slaughter took place.

Parts of the dead baby animals were then scattered around the farm.

The piglets had been born only hours before their murder to sow Nelly, a Large Black breed of pig.

Mr Blunkett, who helped set up the much-loved urban farm, said: "We don't think of animals grieving, but this pig did.

"With her snout pressed against the corner of the sty, she refused to eat for days. She was in bereavement. Not so the killer, I suspect. He is clearly a psychopath.

"Just imagine – if the piglet killer is a young man – what horrors he may commit on the rest of us when he reaches adulthood without any treatment for his madness."