CWU Responds To Consultation On Dangerous Dogs Offences Sentencing

The Union has issued a formal response to the Sentencing Council's public consultation on its proposed guideline to judges and magistrates with regard to the sentencing of owners of dangerous dogs in the event their dog attacks and injures anyone.

In the 18 page document, written by Dave Joyce the CWU National Health, Safety & Environment Officer, the Union's response deals with not only the inconsistent sentencing handed down by maghistrates and judges, but also provides the evidence and statistics involved in the [prpoblem of dangerous doig attacks in the UK.

It provides several paragraphs on the CWU's 'Bite-Back' Campaign, the 23,000 Postal Workers Attacked By Dogs in the last 5 Years, and even lists the names of those killed by dogs.

In the Overview chapter, the Union argues:

"The CWU believes that appropriate sentencing for Dangerous Dogs Offences cases is urgently needed in the UK, along with the regularised, consistent use of ancillary orders.  Presently the CWU does not believe that in all cases, the penalties handed down by the Courts, fit the crime!

Higher compensation orders are also required along with a victims surcharge to aid the victims of dog attack crimes and to provide some level of reparation to redress the damage caused to the injured victim.

In summary the sentencing council needs to address poor, inconsistent and inadequate sentencing in Dangerous Dogs Offences cases.

New Guidance to the Courts, Magistrates and Judges should involve the consistent use of the following:-

(A) Disqualification orders which disqualify the offending dog owner or person responsible for the dog from keeping dogs for a specified period of time. Where injuries occur, the CWU believe this should be for a period of 10 year to life.

(B) Deprivation orders which remove custody of the dog from the offending dog owner or person responsible for it.

(C) Destruction orders which stipulates that the dog in question must be destroyed. The CWU believe this should happen in all serious injury cases.

(D) Suspended or Contingent Destruction or Control orders which requires the offending owner or person responsible for the dog to comply with control conditions (e.g. confinement to a secure area or accommodation, muzzling, keeping the dog on lead in public, no parks or play areas to be visited, dog and owner to attend training etc).

(E) Compensation Orders for injured victims of up to the statutory £5000 maximum on conviction of all aggravated offences.

(F) Victims Surcharges to be added to fines to help dog attack crime victims."

In the conclusion to its response to sentetncing guidelines, the CWU says:

"The outcome of the new Sentencing Council guideline must be to ensure that Judges make best use of their powers so that irresponsible dog owners who put the public at risk can be punished and banned from keeping dogs. Genuinely dangerous dogs can be put down and compensation should be paid to victims by offenders."

The final two paragraphs of the Unions conclusion are perhaps the most important of all those within the 18 page document:

"In our view sentences need to significantly increase in order to become an effective deterrent. The CWU has found an unacceptable leniency applied to Dangerous Dogs cases in general and inconsistency which is equally a problem needing to be addressed.

The draft guidelines on dangerous dog offences will certainly help address these problems and provide much needed clarity and consistency in assessing individual cases and this consultation has been considered in detail by our Union as one of the 'key stakeholder organisation' with the most Dog Attack victims per annum.

Putting these proposals into context however, it needs to be remembered however that welcome as these proposals are, they do not deal with the central problem and that is with the deficient Dangerous Dogs Laws in England and Wales, the main issue being for the CWU is that the law doesn't apply on private land where 70% of the attacks on CWU members occur."

The full CWU response to the consultation exercise can be downloaded as a pdf document here

Source: CWU

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