TWO men are due in court in Huddersfield next week after an alleged dog attack on a Lockwood mum.

Both are due to appear at Huddersfield Magistrates Court on March 19, facing charges under the Dangerous Dogs Act.

They were held after 26-year-old Waheed Akhtar was badly mauled by a pitbull dog in Upper Mount Street, as she tried to protect her baby son.

Ms Akhtar has been undergoing plastic surgery at Bradford Royal Infirmary and faces more treatment.

The dog has been captured and is being held in kennels.

News of the court appearance comes a day after the Government confirmed a tougher crackdown on danger dogs.

Mounting concern over serious injuries and even deaths inflicted by dogs on adults and children have prompted Government proposals to make owners face tough new regulations.

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.