Have the top stories straight to your inbox for free - once a day, every day Yes please! Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

An out-of-control Staffordshire Bull Terrier bit a woman on her hands and body as she tried to stop it ripping her puppy apart.

Drizzy, a five-year-old white Staffie, had escaped after his owner, Avril Isaac, tied him up outside a school in Wigston.

After searching for Drizzy for an hour, 33-year-old Isaac walked home and left the door open for him in case he returned.

Meanwhile, a woman was walking her puppy in Willow Park, Wigston, when Drizzy approached them.

During a hearing at Leicester Magistrates’ Court where Isaac pleaded guilty to letting her dog become out of control and cause injury, prosecutor Kwok Wan described the incident, which happened at about 1pm on June 30.

He said: “While she was walking her puppy on a retractable lead she saw a white Staffie run onto the park.

“The dog approached her and it appeared the dog dogs may at first have wanted to play.

“Without warning the other dog attacked her puppy.”

He said the woman tried to save her puppy by picking it up but the Staffie jumped up and clamped onto the puppy’s rear leg.

Mr Wan said: “She feared her dog’s leg would be ripped off so she put it down and sat cross-legged with her dog in her arms.”

A council worker and a woman rushed to help her but struggled to get the Staffie off the puppy and the puppy’s owner suffered bites to her hands and rib area during the struggle.

Eventually a rubber bicycle chain was used to get the Staffie off the puppy and the council worker told the puppy’s owner to take the injured dog to his vehicle.

Mr Wan said: “She went to seek refuge in the council van but the Staffie circled the council van several times.”

The police arrived and restrained Drizzy and discovered by scanning his microchip that he belonged to Isaac.

The puppy’s injuries resulted in a £251 vet bill, while its owner suffered puncture wounds and other marks to both her hands as well as cuts and bruises to her left forearms and various cuts and scratches on her legs. She was treated at Leicester Royal Infirmary and had to take three days off work due to her injuries.

Isaac, of Queens Drive, Wigston, was initially given a caution by Leicestershire Police and ordered to pay the £251 vet bill, but she failed to pay the money and the case was taken to court by the Crown Prosecution Service.

Chris Pembridge, representing Isaac, who is a mother of five, told the court: “She gave a full and frank account and it’s notable the police felt a caution was appropriate.

“She had been to her children’s school and tied the dog up and gone into the school.

“She came back and found the dog wasn’t there but the lead was – she believes there was perhaps some malicious intent.”

He said Drizzy was “not a dog with violent tendencies” and that there had been no similar issues in the past.

Isaac was ordered to get Drizzy neutered and never take him out in public without a muzzle and a lead.

She was also ordered to pay a total of £993 to the court.

That was made up of a £507 fine, £85 for prosecution costs, a £50 victim surcharge, £251 for the puppy’s treatment and a further £100 compensation to go to the puppy’s owner.