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It's not the lions' fault: circus family

Shane Lennon with the lions. Photo: Nick Moir

The big cats, Sultan, Rudy and Pearl , were lying lazily in their trailer cage at the rear of Lennons Circus big top yesterday. Inside the tent, children squealed with delight as the Flying Lennons performed on the trapeze.

At Penrith's Nepean Hospital , the lion's trainer, Geoffrey Lennon, had just been moved out of intensive care amid debate over the performing future of the three lions that attacked him on Saturday.

Mr Lennon, 40, was on a morphine drip and in no condition to talk about the attack during a matinee performance with the lions, two males and a female, at Jamisontown near Penrith. But his brother, Shane, said Geoffrey would not want to see the lions harmed, and believed he would return to performing with them.

"It was through no fault of the lions that this happened," said Shane Lennon, who hopes they will perform again next Saturday at Granville Park , Merrylands, if given the go-ahead by a State Government inquiry.

"Geoffrey dropped his guard when he turned to get Rudy back on his pedestal and, at that moment, Sultan, who was to his right, rushed and knocked him to the ground. Then Rudy, out of instinct, and then Pearl , joined in.

"They [the doctors] have not said how many times he was bitten. Most are on the right shoulder and neck down to the buttocks. We think about 20. There was not much Geoffrey could do. He was huddled up covering his head with his hands. Then my brother, Warren, and [trainer] Jim Carol rushed in and got them off him with water-filled fire extinguishers."

WorkCover investigators will meet the circus owners today. The Exhibited Animals Advisory Committee of the Agriculture Department will meet tomorrow to discuss the attack and the broader debate about lions in circuses.

Committee registrar Mr Matthew Crane said: "We would advise against euthanasing unless there was some over-riding reason. These animals have predatory instincts that can be triggered in a number of circumstances. It isn't as if [they] were doing anything that isn't part of their normal behaviour."

The RSPCA said a circus was no place for a lion.