His daughter was ‘traumatised, probably for life’, he added.
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| Gary Hindley, 56, leaves Court today after being given a 12-week suspended sentence |
‘She screams in pain for an hour every day while we’re changing her dressing. We’ve got to live with this for the rest of our lives,’ the father said.
He described Hindley’s Staffordshire bull terrier, Buddy, as ‘a weapon in his hands’. The court had heard the family were trying out binoculars and a telescope in a park when the dog ran towards them ‘out of control’ with no collar or lead before pinning the girl to the ground.
‘It was on my little girl, standing on her, with his head buried into her,’ the mother had said.
My daughter was screaming, “Get it off, get it off”. I came round the back and tried to grab it but I couldn’t get it off. I threw myself over her body trying to do everything in my power to protect her.
My daughter was screaming and I was trying to grab the dog around the middle but it was pure muscle and I could not move it.’
The dog only let go when her husband punched it. As the dog was pulled back, it sank its teeth into his wife’s scalp and ripped her hair out.
The girl needed surgery after the attack in Chingford, north-east London, on January 21.
Ozlem Erbil Cetin, for the defence, said Hindley, 54, had written a letter of apology to the family and said he was ‘very remorseful’.
District judge Robert Roscoe ordered the bull terrier to be destroyed, describing it as ‘not well trained, not well looked after and not well supervised’.
Hindley, whose term was suspended for two years, was banned from owning an animal for ten years, ordered to complete 200 hours’ unpaid work and told to pay £450 in damages.
He will be monitored electronically with an 8pm-7am curfew.
Hindley, of Chingford, admitted allowing a dog to be dangerously out of control in a public place and causing injury when he appeared at Thames magistrates court in east London.
(MetroUK - Feb 13, 2012)
