An award-winning author has incurred the wrath of animal lovers and vegetarians after posting photographs on social media of a rabbit she trapped, skinned and cooked.

Jeanette Winterson, famed for her novel Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, shocked some of her 32,800 Twitter followers by saying: "The skin which includes the head makes a great glove puppet".

Winterson posted a photo of the cleaned rabbit, saying: "Rabbit ate my parsley. I am eating the rabbit."

But her posts drew criticism from some, apparently sickened at her "cruelty".

Jacqueline Looker tweeted: "i unfollow u,u make me sick." The auther countered her critics saying she had trapped the rabbit in a cage next to her parsley bed and killed it humanely.