Dog attack tenant gets suspended sentence
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A housing association tenant has been given a suspended prison sentence after disobeying a court injunction forbidding her keeping dogs at her home.
Bron Afon Community Housing had taken out the injunction earlier in the year after one of its housing officers needed 30 stitches after part of her lip was ripped away after visiting the home of Nicola Hope, of Capel Newydd Avenue, Blaenavon. She was mauled by Ms Hope’s Staffordshire Bull Terrier.
On Tuesday Ms Hope was committed to 28 days prison after it emerged she was still keeping a dog. The order was suspended until July 2010 and will not be put into force if Ms Hope removes any dogs from her home and does not allow them to come back.
Duncan Forbes, Chief Executive of Bron Afon Community Housing, said: ‘On this occasion we had two witnesses who saw dogs in the home so we prepared a case for court. One witness said that after knocking the front door it was opened and ‘a Staffordshire bull terrier which was inside the house came charging towards the front door.’ The person who opened the door had to hold the dog back. This was exactly what happened to our member of staff that was attacked. We don’t know if that was the same dog but the injunction said she was not allowed to keep any dogs at that address.’
He added that Ms Hope had shown ‘she has no interest in protecting the safety of our staff, visitors or her neighbours. It could easily have been a child knocking on her door.’
He added that the association has also been granted a possession order for a separate breach of tenancy conditions and non-payment of rent.
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Readers' comments (8)
eric | 24/12/2009 10:00 am
this just sums up the Joke that the court process is for HA's...
the owner breaches a court order, granted after a serious and dangerous incident, and the judge gives a suspended order....
you should have not allowed your dog to attack someone....
you have to get rid of your dog(s) and are not allowed to keep any dogs
you should have complied with your court order....
we are still not going to do anything to protect the public and HA staff!
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Melvin Bone | 24/12/2009 10:07 am
What a lovely story for Christmas.
Thankfully the tenant is getting evicted for another issue.
Maybe all housing officers should be issued with stun guns in case of dangerous dogs and argumentative tenants.
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Craig | 27/12/2009 6:14 pm
All RSL's should have a procedure that is reviewed before visiting a tenants property to ensure any risk is minimised.
At Homes for Haringey if a dog is known to be on the premises whether its considered dangerous or not NO ONE should visit. The police should be called and with the RSL should take a look at the dog under the Dangerous dogs act. Any visit should carry out a risk assesment before any visit is carried out.
As they say 'Lets be careful out there!!!'
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Paul | 29/12/2009 9:30 am
Let's be serious! When would a housing officer get time to carry out a risk assessment??
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kass | 29/12/2009 1:36 pm
Craig | Sun, 27 Dec 2009 18:14 GMT
I agree... That why I found hard to believe that Bron Afron Community Housing could send their housing officer to see this tenant in the first place. Surely any proper risk assessment would have avoided this Housing Officer being attacked.
So while the tenant was obviously to blame for keeping a dangerous dog, it was up to the Social Landlord to insure their Officer would not be harmed... I wonder if this housing officer will now take any action again his/her employer for possible compensation.
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kass | 29/12/2009 4:23 pm
"Paul | Tue, 29 Dec 2009 09:30 GMT
Let's be serious! When would a housing officer get time to carry out a risk assessment??2
If this is the case, then no one should be surprised this officer got attacked.
If this goes beyond this social landlords and applies to most social landlords, then these social landlords are the ones endangering the lives of their staff, and taking tenants to courts and evicting them is not going to make their lives any safer.
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ILAG | 31/12/2009 8:04 pm
There is a plethora of legislation available to the police and LA's to deal with the problem of dangerous tenants armed with wolverines. Check out DEFRA's "Dangerous Dogs Law - Guidance for Enforcers" at
http://www.defra.gov.uk/wildlife-pets/pets/cruelty/documents/dogs-guide-enforcers.pdf
As stated on page 7 "a willingness by (LA) officers to enforce this policy is essential in making any tenancy agreement effective"
Yet enforcement is what is sadly lacking. Not a week goes by without the local papers here in London reporting a Staffie attack by our darling chav-scum estate dwellers eg "Three-year-old girl is mauled by bull terrier":
http://www.islingtongazette.co.uk/content/islington/gazette/news/story.aspx?brand=ISLGOnline&category=news&tBrand=northlondon24&tCategory=newsislg&itemid=WeED30%20Dec%202009%2011:24:01:710
Yet the ALMO, which incidentally owns 48% of all residential property in the borough, freely admit they don't enforce their "one dog" policy let alone police the type of dog infesting their estates. The consequence of this "can't be arsed" policy is that those estates have become breeding grounds for wolverines. Nothing will change of course. But hey, that's social housing for you. Great system isn't it?
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Cats | 25/01/2010 6:31 am
Enforcement is the key factor here, The housing laws are out there so why are these undesirables being protected, if they were all banished into one area out of the way where would the uproar come from certainly not my quarter,
Duncan forbes says
He added that Ms Hope had shown ‘she has no interest in protecting the safety of our staff, visitors or her neighbours. It could easily have been a child knocking on her door.’
then surly she was in clear breach of her tenancy and should have been evicted on these grouds and refused futher housing, i do not wish to live in a police state but these people must be clapmed down down heavy.
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