Father drank 8 cans of lager... then slept as dog killed his son
A ROOFER drank eight cans of lager then fell asleep while his terrier mauled his three-weekold baby son to death.
Ryan Young, 32, ordered a taxi to fetch him eight more cans of Foster’s just before the tragedy, a court heard.
His partner Maria Blacklin screamed in horror when she came home to find her son Reggie lying in a pool of blood.
The baby was barely alive and died shortly afterwards.
The attack by the foot-tall Lakeland terrier- cross could easily have been stopped, Newcastle Crown Court heard, but Young did not wake up to prevent it. He later told police he had drunk eight cans of Foster’s.
A taxi driver came forward to say he had been asked to deliver eight more to his Sunderland address on the fateful evening in June 2015. Miss Blacklin, whose grandmother had died that day, had gone out to console her family. She left her partner to look after Reggie, who was in a bouncer.
Miss Blacklin returned home after 4am to what Judge Tim Gittins said was a scene from a ‘Gothic horror’. The baby was blue but was still breathing and paramedics were called, but he could not be saved.
Reggie is thought to have fallen or been dragged from the bouncer before being savaged. The terrier, called Tricky, may have been driven to attack by the his ‘unco- ordinated’ movements, the court heard.
There had been no concern over the pet’s temperament around children. It was destroyed after the attack.
Young later told police: ‘I would not say I was drunk, more tired.’ Shaun Dodds, prosecuting, said: ‘The officers who arrived described the defendant as appearing drunk.’ Young refused to give a breath test and the amount he had drunk was not clear. But Mr Dodds said: ‘Had the defendant not been asleep in drink, he would have been able to stop the attack.’
Judge Gittins said Young’s alcohol intake had intoxicated him ‘if not to the point of stupor, then into a very deep sleep’. He said: ‘I am satisfied that your lack of control of your animal was due to the influence of alcohol and your selfish decision to drink to excess after a hard day at work.’ The judge added: ‘Reggie was subjected to a most dreadful, torturous, confusing attack and he sustained horrific and painful injuries.’
Young, who admitted being in charge of a dangerous dog at a previous hearing, wept loudly as he was jailed for 21 months. A child neglect charge, which he denied, was ordered to lie on file.
The father had carried his son’s coffin at his funeral, defence barrister Caroline Goodwin QC said.
‘He is absolutely devastated,’ she added. ‘Nothing he can do can turn back the clock and bring back his own child. It has been a long two years, this is a life sentence for this man.’
The judge accepted that Young was a hard-working father who had developed depression and post-traumatic stress disorder after the attack.