Press Association
Saturday 11th February 2012
A woman has been reported to prosecutors after a 10-year-old girl was bitten on the face by a dog.
Toni Clannachan had part of her cheek torn apart when an American akita dog bit her while she was playing in a schoolfriend's garden at a house in Kilmarnock on Tuesday.
The youngster, who was taken to Crosshouse Hospital in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, remained in a stable condition in hospital on Thursday.
A spokeswoman for Strathclyde Police said: "A 41-year-old woman is subject of a report to the Procurator Fiscal and the dog has been seized."
Prosecutors will decide whether the woman, who has not been arrested, should face any charges.
Toni's father, James Dixon, told the Daily Record newspaper: "These dogs shouldn't be with families or around kids. They are killing machines."
Speaking about the injuries to his daughter's face, he said: "If the dog had bit her an inch or so lower it would have severed an artery in her neck and I really think she would be dead."
The newspaper said Toni needed more than 100 stitches for the injury from the attack.
Inspector Gordon Bruce, from Strathclyde Police, told STV News At Six: "The dog was seized by Strathclyde Police and remains under our control. So, what I would say to the general public, especially within the Kilmarnock area, is there is nothing to fear from this dog. This dog remains under our control where it can't do anybody any harm."
The dog attack is the second of its kind this week in Scotland. On Sunday 10-year-old Rhianna Kidd was mauled by two rottweilers while riding her bicycle in Dundee. She was treated for a fractured jaw and has had to have plastic surgery. The dogs were put down earlier this week and a 33-year-old woman was charged in connection with the attack under the Dangerous Dogs Act, Tayside Police said earlier this week.
