A wheelchair user wept as he recalled how he was attacked as he slept in his specially modified camper van. He thought he was going to be killed.

Perhaps the feline fittings were there to provide some home comfort for the man from Tiger’s Bay. True to much of the style of this city — the world capital of excess — it all looked a little much though.

Sri Lanka’s air force said it bombed a Tamil Tiger rebel naval base in the country’s north-west today, but a guerrilla spokesman claimed the air raid killed 15 civilians in a fishing village.