Drunken father of baby killed by dog is sent to jail

A MAN who drunkenly slept through a sustained, fatal attack by the family’s terrier on his three-week-old son has been jailed for 21 months.

Reggie Young’s mother Maria Blacklin screamed in horror when she came home to find the baby barely alive, with partner Ryan Young and Lakeland-cross Tricky asleep.

Newcastle Crown Court heard that the attack by the foot-tall dog could easily have been stopped, but the father did not wake up and the mauling may have lasted up to 20 minutes.

Young later told police he had drunk eight cans of Foster’s lager, and a taxi driver came forward to say he had been asked to deliver eight more to the address in Falkland Road, Sunderland, on the evening in June 2015.

Miss Blacklin’s grandmother had died that day and she had gone out to console her family, leaving her partner, a roofer, to look after Reggie, who was in a bouncer in the lounge.

Miss Blacklin returned home after 4am to what Judge Tim Gittens said was a scene of “Gothic horror”, with her newborn on the floor in a pool of blood.

Reggie was blue but still breathing and paramedics were called but he could not be saved. 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.”

He refused to give a breath test and the amount he had drunk was not clear. Judge Gittens said Young’s alcohol intake that night “significantly intoxicated” him, “if not to the point of stupor, then into a very deep sleep”.

The judge accepted that Young, a hard-working father, had developed depression and post-traumatic stress disorder in which he repeatedly experienced the aftermath of the terrier attack.

He said: “I am satisfied that your lack of control of your animal was due to the influence of alcohol.”