Dog assaults have soared within the West Midlands over the previous couple of years, with hundreds of people injured by out-of-control pets, worrying new freedom of data figures have revealed. Scores of harmful canine homeowners had been taken to courtroom after their pets lashed out.
There have been greater than 5,500 canine assaults which no less than resulted in damage across the area since 2014. They included essentially the most surprising and ugly assaults the place people had been killed and seriously damage after being mauled by the rampaging animals.
The variety of offences of being in command of a canine dangerously uncontrolled and inflicting damage recorded by West Midlands Police have risen yearly since 2014, virtually tripling in seven years from 336 to 951 in 2021. In 2020, the entire was 774, up from 757 in 2019 and 667 in 2018.
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It means there have been 18 severe canine assaults each week within the West Midlands final yr. And there have already been 440 recorded incidents this yr, which means the pattern for rising canine assaults is about to proceed.
These had been assaults on people solely and don’t embody incidents involving different canines or pets. And there are more likely to have been many extra bites which weren’t reported to police.
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Most instances would have been severe sufficient to end in homeowners being charged with harmful canine offences and taken to courtroom. There had been additionally no less than 56 separate assaults on help canines during the last eight years.
Last yr, 21-year-old Keira Ladlow was killed by a dog which had been re-homed by her brother the place he lived in Sunbeam Way, Kitts Green. And tragic great-grandmother Lucille Downer died after being mauled by two American bulldogs which escaped through a neighbour’s fence and into her again backyard in Rowley Regis in April 2021.
(Image: WMP)
Locals had been left surprised by the horrific attack on the 85-year-old retired prepare dinner on Good Friday in Boundary Avenue which led to the 2 animals being seized by police and destroyed, as armed officers descended on the scene. Then in March this yr, a two-year-old boy was killed by a dog within the hamlet of Egdon, Worcestershire in a heartbreaking case which sparked a sea of tributes.
West Midlands Police says of harmful canines on its web site: “A dog is considered as dangerous if it is out of control, if it injures someone or makes someone worried that it may injure them. A court may also decide that a dog is dangerous if it attacks another animal, or the owner of another animal thinks they could be injured if they tried to stop the dog attacking their animal.”
