Call for stricter dangerous dog law

Archie-Lee Hirst was being cared for by his 16-year-old aunt at his maternal grandparents' house in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, when the dog launched the unexpected attack in December last year.

Speaking after the inquest at Wakefield Coroner's Court, Archie-Lee's paternal grandfather Andrew Williamson echoed coroner David Hinchliff's call for more stringent laws and said he wanted new legislation to demand that all dogs are kept muzzled.

At the time of the attack, on December 28 last year, Archie-Lee was being looked after by his teenage aunt, who was also baby-sitting her two younger sisters, aged six and seven.

Archie-Lee was being carried to the back door by the seven-year-old when the female dog snatched the child out of her arms. His aunt failed to save him from the two-and-a-half-year-old rottweiler's jaws, despite striking and kicking the dog, and he died later in hospital from multiple injuries.

The inquest was told that the dog did not have enough mental stimulation in the back yard where she was kept and had not been walked for five months.

Witness Mike Mullen, a canine consultant, said the rottweiler would therefore have over-reacted to any form of stimulation and would have seen Archie-Lee as an object being presented to her by the seven-year-old.

The inquest heard how the child's grandparents had bought the dog around six months previously from someone they knew in the pub, who had himself bought it as a puppy from an unregistered breeder.

Recording a verdict of accidental death, Mr Hinchliff said: "I would like to see if the law in this country can become such that there are stricter controls, particularly with dangerous dogs, so that their breeding and distribution can be controlled more stringently than is the case at the moment."

He added that anyone contemplating buying a dog should learn as much as they could about the breed and acquire it from a recognised and registered breeder.