The story of “The Bird Man of Alcatraz” is legendary but it is amazing how many criminals have allowed animals to play a vital role in their lives. They may be antisocial as far as their attitude to fellow humans is concerned but with animals ... that is different.

Attila Ambrus, known as the whisky robber because of the stimulant he needed before each exploit, accumulated well over half a million euros from thirty robberies, shot police trying to arrest him, took hostages and injured a female bank clerk. The gains from his heists he spent on booze, holidays and expensive cars. This hood was no Robin Hood, spending the money on himself and, most importantly, on his dog Virag and this has endeared him to his fellow Hungarians. Virag was a Bernese Mountain dog to whom he was totally devoted. When arrested he scaled a prison wall in full view of security cameras and then set off, not to flee the country but to join Virag who had been hidden in a friend’s house. Police had anticipated his action and were lying in wait to collar him in a suburb of Budapest. The two were to flee the country together. Ambrus had to spend some years apart from Virag but in his cell he was happy that Virag was safe and well for a well known actress offered the dog a temporary home. A newspaper took up the story and Virag is happily ensconced in a new and caring home.

It is strange how men of violence have deep emotional ties with their animals. Simon de Montfort, one of history's worst war criminals who tortured his captives, adored his four dogs. Nothing could be too good for them.

Adolf Hitler was devoted to Blanco his Alsatian, Martin Bormann, a farmer by background, became deeply depressed when cattle went to slaughter, his daughter told me. As for his dogs “He could not be without them … they were his life.“

Peter Manuel, who committed some of the most callous and sadistic murders in the annals of crime, went to see friends before his arrest to make arrangement for them to look after Bob, his Springer Spaniel “In case something should happen to me.” It did…he was hanged. Bob lived for eleven more years.

“The web of life is a mingled yarn, good and ill together” wrote Shakespeare. Animals certainly throw a light on that.