Letters November 4: Jail would send message to danger dog owners

ANOTHER small child has been attacked by a dangerous dog which was not secured in its yard in Halifax.

This time the headline was “Grandmother within an inch of jail over dangerous dog attack on child of two” (The Yorkshire Post, October 30).

What infuriates me is both the sentence handed down to the dog’s owner and the statement made by the Bradford Crown Court Recorder when the dog’s owners had previously been warned to keep it tethered in its yard after it attacked another dog. He said: “The message has got to go out to all people who insist on keeping dangerous dogs like this in their yards, that they will be held responsible when something like this happens.” He then gave the woman a 12-month jail sentence suspended for a year plus 100 hours of unpaid work, telling her that she had come “within an inch” of jail.

Well, “something like this” has happened and if Recorder Jeremy Barnett wants “the message to go out”, then a custodial jail sentence would amplify the message, considering the fact that the dog’s owners had ignored a previous warning and consequently a two-year-old girl needed emergency treatment as well as suffering possible nerve damage.