A TRAGEDY beset the Cotswolds this week as a young girl, just nine years old, was kicked by a horse while out with a local hunt group.

The heavy blow fatally injured her.

Animals are unpredictable and this was nothing more a tragic accident just as Bonnie Armitage’s mum said, before adding “I don’t want anyone to be blamed for this.

“It was no one’s fault.”

It is a comment rarely uttered after such a shocking and untimely passing, as distraught parents seek comforting answers from anywhere as to how and why something so unfair can happen in our world.

As so often, the tragedy was followed by an outpouring of tributes as thousands of horse riders from across the world took to social media with pictures of themselves in blue.

The colour was Bonnie’s favourite and horse riding was what she loved doing, said her family.

In the modern age it is lovely to see social media used as a force for good.

However, on the other side of the coin, sites such as twitter and facebook are trawling grounds for the sad and lonely individuals we call trolls.

Whatever your views on hunting, to use such an incident to further any form of agenda is entirely missing the essential point of what has occurred.

We hope that Bonnie’s grieving parents never read some of the atrocious comments left on newspaper websites and social media sites.