Could you claim that the culprit was spineless, but the victim anything but?

OT don't ask how to pronounce Whakatane, this is a family website :-) (cowardly kiwi from nearby).

The article does not specify what the fifteen year old was, so I assume it was a hedgehog. That's pretty old for a hedgehog. No wonder it was found to be dead afterwards, suffering a reddened leg and a shock like that. I wonder if the thrown hedgehog was OK?

What a bunch of pricks

Mine's the spiky one.

Mine's the thorny one, thanks...

Sonic the Hedgehog is not nearly as dangerous to a raving mad scientist as was previously concluded. The little fellow can't even kill a teenage with his speed and spines. How does he expect to take on the worlds Meglomaniacs?

Mine's the one with SEGA on it...

I wonder if it made a megadrive style spin-dash sound effect?

" [ ... ] it was dead when it was collected as evidence [ ...] "

Yeh, right. I bet it was fine when they picked it up, until it "accidentally" hit its head climbing into the police van and then "fell down the stairs" when it got to the station...

It seems that "the hedgehog can never be buggered at all" doesn't quite stand up to recent evidence. Although kiwis are usually known to go for sheep, but in this case the protagonist was obviously looking for a challenge (either that or he was, in fact, a fakir)

Actually, he's a masochist....muttered something through his teeth about "no pleasure without pain..."

Obviously he was inspired to do this from playing one of the 'Sonic the Hedgehog' titles...

Beautiful name, really... (wackotane? whackamole?)

Great, another thing they'll ban me from taking into the airplane! Bugger...

Are those flames or spikes?

That is a flame.

whakatane = fuka-tah-nay

Sooner they're dead the better.

Bloody little pommy spikers eat the birds eggs.

The only native mammals are a couple of species of bats, so a lot of native birds lay their eggs on the ground in nests in clumps of long grass, right where hungry egg-loving hedgepigs can find a meal.