A man has been mauled to death by a pet lion he kept illegally caged in his back garden in the Czech Republic.

DailyMail reports that Michal Prasek’s body was found in the pen of the nine-year-old big cat by his father, who said the enclosure was locked from the inside.

Mr Prasek, 34, kept the lion for breeding along with a lioness, which lived in a separate cage.  
The animals were shot dead by police called to the scene. A police spokesperson told local media that the shootings were “absolutely necessary for them to get to the man”.

Prasek, 33, bought the lion in 2016 and the lioness last year, and kept them both in home-made enclosures in his back yard in the village of Zdechov.

He had previously been denied planning permission to build the pens, and was subsequently fined for illegal breeding. But his conflict with the authorities reached a stalemate after he refused to let anyone onto his property.