Mauled as I was grieving

And I thought I was friends with my neighbours...

For almost 16 years, I’d lived in my one-bed flat, and I’d always enjoyed a natter over the garden fence with neighbours. When my elderly neighbour Derek died, in July 2016, I wanted to pay my respects.

‘Such a sweet soul,’ I told my daughter, Leanne, then 36.

But with a heart condition, osteoporosis, and no car, I didn’t think I’d make his funeral.

‘We’ll give you a lift,’ another neighbour Patrick offered one evening, as we sat in my garden having a drink. ‘Thanks,’ I smiled back. Patrick had moved in with his girlfriend Leeanne a few years before with their huge Japanese Akita dog Kioshi.

As we sat chatting, I stroked Kioshi’s head.

We’d had Labradors growing up. I’d always loved dogs.

A few days later, we all went off to Derek’s funeral.

And, one afternoon soon after, Patrick invited me and Leanne round for drinks.

‘To Derek,’ Patrick said, handing me a vodka and Coke.

We nattered while Kioshi sat quietly next to me. Soon, I was ready for bed. ‘Time for my PJS’ I sighed. It was my 60th birthday in a few days, and I knew my daughter Leanne was planning something with my partner Tony, 57, and my brother Steven. I wanted to be well rested. ‘Thanks again for the lift,’ I said, going to shake Patrick and Leeanne’s hands as I got up to leave.

Suddenly, I saw the white flash of Kioshi’s teeth, as he flew towards me from the other side of the room.

I felt his jaws, as sharp as scissors, sink into the left side of my face as he shook his giant head from side to side, growling ferociously.

As he shook me like a rag doll, I felt my skin rip open.

‘Help!’ I screamed, as blood sprayed everywhere.

Patrick and Leeanne stood like statues in their living room, as my girl Leanne rushed to my side.

Grabbing Kioshi by his collar, she somehow managed to twist it tight enough to stop him mauling me further. By then, I’d passed out. I was rushed to the Royal Alexandra Hospital by ambulance.

There, surgeons spent two hours stitching up the inside and outside of my mouth, as well as my ear.

Despite a local anaesthetic, I was crying in pain.

‘I’m sorry,’ a doctor soothed. ‘The nerves in your mouth are so sensitive, there’s no easy way of doing this.’

Agony.

Later, I was transferred to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Glasgow.

But, on the way, my blood pressure plummeted.

‘She needs more surgery, but her heart is too unstable,’ a doctor told Leanne.

Tony, my brother Steven and his wife Edith, both 58, arrived soon after. But, on morphine, I was barely conscious.

‘We’ve reported Patrick and Leeanne to the police,’ Steven explained. ‘Their dog’s been taken away, too.’ Plagued by terrifying, vivid flashbacks,

I shuddered at the

As he shook me like a rag doll, I felt my skin ripping open

thought of those enormous sharp teeth coming at me.

But my hospital bedside was never empty, with my family rallying.

‘I want a mirror, please,’ I said a few days later.

‘That’s not a good idea, love,’ Tony said.

Only, later that night, I shuffled to the toilet...

Catching my reflection in the mirror, I gasped in horror.

My skin was red-raw and purple, with dried blood and jagged stitches all down my face.

Turning away, I felt hot tears burning my cheeks.

‘You can leave me,’ I told Tony the next morning.

We’d been together for 20 years, but how could he love me, looking like this? ‘Never,’ he said firmly. After four days in hospital, I was allowed home. Two days before my 60th… ‘We’d planned a surprise party,’ Leanne sighed, knowing there was no way I could leave the house now.

The slightest noise made me jump. And the thought of seeing a dog made me break out in a nervous sweat. Over the following months, I went from 11st 7lb to weighing just over 7st.

I could only eat mashed-up Weetabix or soup through a straw. And I stopped going out – my confidence shattered.

Even if I saw a dog on telly, I started shaking.

Leanne was a nervous wreck, too, traumatised by the attack.

But I was so grateful to her – she’d saved my life.

In September 2016, while we waited for the court case, I heard a loud whistling outside my bedroom window at around 2am.

‘Come and see this,’ Tony frowned, pulling up the blinds.

Patrick was outside, his trousers round his ankles, flashing his bottom!

I’d been disfigured for life, yet he seemed to think it was all a big joke.

Finally, in January 2017, Leeanne Mchugh, 36, and Patrick Maher, 46, pleaded guilty to offences under the Dangerous Dogs Act. The following month, they were jailed for 12 months at Paisley Sheriff Court, and they were banned from owning dogs for 20 years. The judge ruled the dog, who had been kept by police, should be destroyed. And Maher received a further four months to run alongside for taunting me. But it’s little comfort. I’ve had to move house and, when I go out, I feel like everyone’s staring at me.

My face stings when the weather’s cold, and I’ve lost sensation in my mouth.

I even have to drink tea and coffee through a straw.

I loved going out for dinner, playing bingo, pottering about the shops. Now, I would never leave the flat alone.

I can’t believe a simple handshake after a friendly drink with my neighbours led to all this.