DOG WARDEN BRINGS DANGEROUS DOGS CASE TO COURT

Tue, 05 Aug 2008
A prosecution under the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 brought by Three Rivers District Council Dog Warden and NDWA member Debra Sandling has resulted in a dog owner being fined, having to relinquish ownership of two Akita’s and being banned from owning dogs for five years.

Dog owner Mr Ahmed of King’s Langley in Hertfordshire was before the Magistrates Court on five charges of having dogs dangerously out of control. The two Akita dogs were allowed to stray on a regular basis. The dogs whilst straying had on four separate occasions attacked other dogs being walked by their owners on another occasion they attacked a person and they were seized by the council as stray dogs two hours after they had attacked another dog being walked by its owner.

In all the dogs had carried out seven attacks whilst they were straying and in all cases members of the public were intimidated by the dogs, two dogs spent several days on drips in local vets due to being attacked by the Akita's.

The Magistrates found Mr Ahmed guilty on two counts of being the owner of dogs dangerously out of control in a public place, three other charges were not proceeded with on Tuesday 5th August 2008.

He was fined £200 with £800 costs, has to relinquish ownership of the dogs and is disqualified from having custody of a dog for 5 years.

An interesting point to come out of the case was that although one of the dogs was micro chipped and the details on the microchip showed that Mr Ahmed was the dog owner, legal counsel was of the opinion that this was hearsay evidence and could not be used in court.

The Kennel Club were contacted and they were going to send an executive down from Petlog to confirm that Three Rivers DC had contacted them in the first place and that the information recorded was the same as the owner.

By prosecuting this case Three Rivers District Council has proven that it is not just the police who deal with dangerous dogs contrary to the recent DEFRA advice that advises that the police deal with dangerous dogs and that local councils deal with stray and nuisance dogs!

Well done Debra on bringing this case to court and for protecting public safety in your district.


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