Court date for Huddersfield dog attack pair

Mar 10 2010 Huddersfield Daily Examiner

Court date for Huddersfield dog attack pair

They could include compulsory insurance for dog-owners and so-called “Dogbos” which would make owners muzzle their dogs in public in some cases.

Figures uncovered by the Tories have suggested 100 people every week are treated in hospital after being bitten by a dog, with the number of cases rising from 3,079 in 1997-8 to 5,221 last year.

In London alone, the number of dangerous dog cases going to court increased from 35 in 2002-3 to 719 in 2008-9.

The rise in the so-called “status dog” has prompted the Metropolitan Police to set up a new unit to handle a surge in the number of attacks and to kennel hundreds of seized animals.

Terrible cases to make the headlines in recent years include that of John-Paul Massey, a four-year-old who died at his grandmother’s house in Liverpool last year after suffering “massive injuries” inflicted by a dog later found in tests to be a pitbull, a breed banned under the Dangerous Dogs Act.

In February last year, three-and-a-half-month-old Jaden Mack was killed by a Staffordshire bull terrier and a Jack Russell at his grandmother’s home in Ystrad Mynach, South Wales, devastating the local community.

Another victim was 13-month-old Archie-Lee Hirst, killed by a rottweiler in the back yard of his grandparents’ home in Wakefield, West Yorkshire.