Owner of killer husky dog can carry on working as vet

CONVICTION WHICH LED TO SUSPENDED SENTENCE DID NOT RENDER HER UNFIT TO PRACTISE

A MUM whose Siberian husky mauled her baby daughter to death has avoided being struck off from her job as a veterinary nurse.

Karen Alcock and Vince King were racing 19 of their huskies at Ostler’s Plantation near Woodhall Spa on March 6, 2022, when one of the dogs attacked and killed their baby daughter Kyra King as she slept in her pram.

The Siberian husky, named Blizzard, which was pregnant at the time, leaped over the partition separating the cages from the van’s front seat and ran out of the passenger door where it attacked Kyra. The three-month-old was left with multiple head and neck injuries, and her parents performed CPR before emergency services arrived to try and revive her.

Mr King had raced dogs for 20

Karen Alcock along with partner Vince King were sentenced after their husky dog killed their three-month-old daughter years after working in the military and also bred huskies, taking his dogs out for a routine practice run on the day of the incident. Ms Alcock had been with Mr King since 2019 and accompanied him on the racing runs, with Kyra having been taken along for the runs from just five days old.

At Lincoln Crown Court on Monday, August 14, 2023, Ms Alcock was given an eight-month sentence, suspended for two years and was ordered to complete 80 hours of unpaid work.

Mr King was given a 10-month sentence, suspended for two years and was ordered to complete 100 hours of unpaid work.

Ms Alcock faced a disciplinary committee of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) in March 2024. In a letter to the RCVS just months after her sentencing, Ms Alcock wrote: “I accept that I pleaded guilty to the charge, however I would have never have deliberately put Kyra at risk, and I have suffered a personal loss that is indescribable.

“I have not been able to work much (and not in veterinary practice) since Kyra died, however if I feel able, I would like to return to veterinary nursing at some point in the future. I hope the RCVS will understand that Kyra’s death was a truly tragic event and not one which I could have foreseen. I do not believe what happened that night impacts my fitness to practise as a veterinary nurse and hope you will consider my conviction compassionately.”

The RCVS report was published on April 3. Mr Alex Jamieson represented Ms Alcock and told the tribunal: “She was jointly responsible for an otherwise well-behaved and gentle dog when an unforeseeable ‘tragic conjunction in circumstances’ led to an outcome that will always haunt her. The operation of the criminal law required her punishment for that outcome.

“No fair-minded and informed member of the public appraised of the facts would demand that she be punished further, nor condemn a regulator that properly and compassionately applied the standards.”

The college’s disciplinary committee determined that Ms Alcock’s conviction did not render her unfit to practise as a registered veterinary nurse.