The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Vicious dog that mauled schoolgirl will be destroyed.
Court told teenager thought she was going to die during the attack, which has scarred her for life
A vicious dog that savaged a Fife schoolgirl must be destroyed, a sheriff has ruled.
The youngster feared she would die during the terrifying attack in her own garden in Methil last summer, after a powerful American akita called Chaos chewed through a fence to get to her.
She has been left physically and psychologically scarred by her horrific ordeal.
The dog’s owner, 24-year-old Brian Ralph, had left it in the charge of his 80-year-old grandmother, who had gone inside to watch Emmerdale on television when it pounced.
Yesterday Ralph was found guilty of a charge under the Dangerous Dogs Act alleging he was the owner of a dangerously out-of-control animal.
As well as ordering the destruction of Chaos, Sheriff Jamie Gilchrist ruled Ralph must pay the victim £1,000 in compensation and banned him from keeping a dog for a year.
The decision was welcomed by the 14-year-old girl’s family, who said Ralph had shown no remorse whatsoever in the wake of the attack on July 20.
The teenager, who was 13 at the time, had been playing on a trampoline with her eight-year-old cousin when the dog got into the garden, jumped on top of her and bit her 16 times as she screamed for help.
Speaking outside Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court, her mother said: “A simple sorry and the dog destroyed at the very beginning would have been enough. He wasn’t a reasonable owner and I feel justice has been done.
“The dog won’t be back – that was our biggest worry.”
The woman, who cannot be named so as to protect her daughter’s identity, said the girl is still seeing a psychologist to help her recover from her trauma.
“She’s lost confidence and she won’t really go out of the house very much,” she said.
“She tries to keep the scars on her arms covered. She’ll have them for life.”
As he passed sentence, Sheriff Gilchrist told Ralph no one was suggesting he had deliberately caused the incident, which left the youngster in need of hospital treatment.
He added, however: “It’s very obvious your dog has caused very serious injuries to a child and the arrangements for keeping it sufficiently under control were inadequate.
“The lesson, clearly, is: people should not have control of these large, powerful dogs unless they take steps to ensure they are properly looked after and don’t pose a risk of injury to others.”
Ralph’s solicitor, Iain McCafferty, said his client did not oppose the destruction of the dog and added: “The enormity of this has sunk in.”
People should not have control of these large, powerful dogs unless they take steps to ensure they are properly looked after and don’t pose a risk of injury to others