A woman wept as she recalled a savage attack on her pet dog by two German Shepherds.
Gabrielle Waring demonstrated to magistrates in Prestatyn how she struggled to fend off the dogs as she lay on the ground, having been knocked over by one of them.
She said one of the dogs was tearing at the hind legs of Herbie, her Jack Russell, and also biting his neck.
After the incident seven-year-old Herbie underwent emergency surgery but died two days later, and today Heather Cairns appeared in court on four charges.
Two charges related to being the owner of the German shepherds Max and Rocky which were dangerously out of control on February 2, and two alternative charges of being in charge of them while they were out of control.
Miss Waring told the court she was walking Herbie and her sister’s elderly Staffordshire Bull terrier Nell near her home in Bishopswood Road, Prestatyn.
Herbie was on a lead and Nell was walking behind.
On seeing and hearing the German Shepherds in the driveway of Cairns’ home she decided to turn back even though the gates were closed, but a few seconds later she was knocked to the ground.
“The Alsatian was right on top of me and trying to bite Herbie. The other Alsatian came from the side and was within inches of my face,” she said.
“They were biting Herbie repeatedly and he was screaming. I was doing my best to protect myself and Herbie. It seemed to go on and on and on.”
Miss Waring, whose left arms was in a plaster cast after an earlier fall said that Cairns then drove up in her having, having opened the gates electronically from some distance away and started kicking and hitting Max and Rocky, eventually managing to chase them up the driveway.
When Miss Waring shouted that she hated the dogs Cairns replied that she also hated them.
Miss Waring’s boyfriend John Jones was called, and quickly arrived on the scene with a brush to tackle the dogs but by then they had gone.
Herbie was taken to a local vet and then transferred to a specialist vet in Chester but died two days later.
Asked by Miss Rosalind Emsley-Smith, representing Cairns, why she hadn’t heard or seen the dogs approaching, Miss Waring replied: “ I am a runner and if I had seen them I would have scooped my two dogs up and legged it.”
Cairns, 43, now of Ffordd Ffynnon, Dyserth, told the court that the dogs were owned by her partner Tony Thackeray and she had nothing to do with them even though she had admitted to the police that she was the owner.
“I am not a dog lover,” she said.
She said that Max and Rocky were always kept fenced in on the top tier of their three-tiered garden and she had never seen them loose on the driveway.
“I had no reason to believe they were there,” she said.
She said she did everything possible to help Miss Waring.
One of the dogs has since been re-homed but Cairns told the court: “If it had been up to me both would have gone.”
Chairman Duncan Stewart said they were satisfied that Cairns was joint owner of the dogs and therefore guilty of the offences.
Sentence was adjourned until August 19 when the Bench will consider whether the dogs should be destroyed.
see-http://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/prestatyn-woman-tells-court-moment-11523466
No comments:
Post a Comment