A child was chased and mauled by a male Bull Mastiff, Winston, which, along with a female dog of the same breed had run out of the appellant’s house on to a grassy area where children were playing. The appellant had chased after the dogs and managed to seize the male dog after it commenced an attack on one of the children. The dog then broke free and bit the child again.
Held: The defendant’s appeal succeeded. This had been one incident: ‘The sheriff considered that this was not a ‘single incident’; by grabbing the dog’s collar, the appellant was seeking to re-establish her control over him and had succeeded in doing so for a brief period of a few seconds. The sheriff sees what followed as effectively a separate incident upon which conviction would be justified, even if it were not justified in relation to the previous stages of the attack. Having regard to the nature of the incident as a whole, both before and after the appellant’s brief and ineffectual hold on Winston’s collar, the Advocate Depute accepted that conviction would not be justified on the basis on the resumed attack alone. We are satisfied that the concession was rightly made, and the whole attack is to be regarded as a single incident’.
Judges:
Lord Prosser and Lord Penrose and Lord Bonomy
Citations:
[2000] ScotHC 94, 2000 GWD 31-1211
Links:
Statutes:
Jurisdiction:
Scotland
Cited by:
Cited – Thomson v Procurator Fiscal, Peterhead HCJ 16-Dec-2009
The defendant appealed against her conviction for having her dog dangerously out of control in a public place. She said there had been insufficient evidence to justify the finding. The dog was said to had attacked and bitten another dog, and then . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Crime, Animals
Updated: 29 August 2022; Ref: scu.170653
