Under current legislation dog owners can only be prosecuted if their dogs attack people in public spaces. Recent cases of dogs causing serious injury in the home, where the owners cannot be prosecuted, have prompted the Government to look again at the 1991 Dangerous Dogs Act. Earlier in the year the Government undertook to change the law so that owners would be held responsible for an attack by their dogs wherever the attack took place.
In a further move, a public consultation is now underway to look at increasing the maximum sentence from 2 years to life, the latter being an option when a dog kills someone, with a proposed 10 years maximum for those that maim. You can read and respond to the consultation here.
In The Independent, Jeremy Browne, the Lib Dem crime prevention minister is quoted as saying:
Dog owners who fail to take responsibility for their dogs must be held accountable.
Today’s consultation will give the public a say in whether owners of dangerous dogs that attack people should face tougher penalties, possibly life imprisonment.
This government is taking urgent action to protect the public from out of control dogs.
We are changing the law so owners can be prosecuted for attacks on private property and our anti-social behaviour reforms will give the police and local agencies more effective powers to deal with dangerous dogs.
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8 Comments
Long overdue.
Agree with Cllr. Wright that this is long overdue, but surely mandatory licensing and chipping are needed, in order to prosecute where a dangerous dog is wilfully abandoned?
There’s a joke in there somewhere about how laws on dangerous dogs are being reported on by our NewsHound, but it’s been a long day and I just can’t formulate it…
Daniel – Not entirely unintentional.
So, if I have a dog and someone tries to force their way into my home and said dog defends both myself and the home, I can be prosecuted?
Much though it is necessary for this issue to be re-examined, it is simply ridiculous to include in a public consultation document the option of life imprisonment for this offence.
Indeed in my view the employment of public consultation on any consideration of appropriate sentencing merely encourages the usual “throw away the key” mentality. Jurisprudence does not lend itself to this approach.
Yes: dogs can be dangerous. Yes: dog owners can be irresponsible. But NO: more legislative “stabs in the dark”, put together by people who have as much experience of both dogs and dog owners as I have of filling teeth, will not solve the problem. Hoping that it will is downright irresponsible and dangerous.
Making dog ownership illegal would be a more sensible solution than this.
Much needed. The current law is absolutely ‘barking’.