On December 10 last year Osya escaped from Sitaeva's home in Broad Street, Brighton, and attacked a smaller dog being walked by owner Gary Murphy.Yeah, right…
Witnesses said Osya pinned the dog, called Benny, and “shook him like a rag doll”.
Drinkers at the nearby Marine Tavern ran outside and kicked and punched Osya to try and get him off. Mr Murphy and another man, Laurence Newell, were both bitten on the hand trying to free Benny from Osya's jaws.
Sitaeva tried to protect her own pet, shouting: “My poor dog, my poor dog” and told them “my dog didn't do anything”.
Benny needed £800 worth of veterinary work for injuries including a broken jaw. When Brighton and Hove City Council animal welfare officers and police went to Sitaeva's home to seize Osya, she claimed she had given him away to a couple of complete strangers on the seafront.Bang to rights then!
But at Brighton Magistrates' Court yesterday she admitted she knew where the dog was being looked after.
Let’s have a bit of ‘contempt of court’ for the owner thrown in as well, before we give the beast the Big Sleep, shall we?
Her barrister Giles Morrison asked the court not to have Osya destroyed under the Dangerous Dogs Act but to impose tougher conditions on its care.Hah! Well, ten out of ten for effort, chum, but clearly that one isn’t...going to…
Oh, FFS..!
Magistrates imposed a “contingent destruction order” meaning Osya will be put down if Sitaeva does not obey a new order. She was barred from walking the dog in public and told only an adult aged between 18 and 55 can walk the dog./golfclap
Osya must be muzzled and on a lead at all times in public and must be kept on a long lead if in a private garden.
Well done! That’s why we have magistrates, isn’t it? So they can impose orders and then, when those orders are broken – actually, not just broken but screwed up in front of the panel, thrown to the ground and spat on with contempt – they can issue more orders.
Shouldn’t there be an IQ test for magistrates?
Presiding magistrate Dr Sue Berry said: “We believe the new and stringent control order will ensure Osya will not be a danger to the public.”Oh, you believe that, do you? And on what do you base that belief?
It can’t be the owner’s compliance with the last lot of orders, can it?
Outside the court Sue Watson, animal welfare officer, said: “What if Osya sees another dog and decides to go for it?Let’s hope the next victim is a magistrate…
“I don't think anybody would be able to control him. We will be keeping a watchful eye on Osya's behaviour in the future.”
Mr Murphy, 56, said: “I'm speechless. It is only a matter of time until something else happens. This is a very dangerous dog.”
5 comments:
Well magistrates / district judges having been playing with people's lives for years. Any read of a police blog or two will recount instances of the decisions made by these muppets contributing to further crime from the petty right up to murder. Once again no one is ever held to account therefore 'lessons are NOT learned' by those in positions of power and responsibility, look at Lord (Ian) Blair of Stockwell!
The issue here is that Judge Alzheimer, and his mates, feel no impact of any of the results of their mad decisions. They are out of control....no-one can stop them doing anything, no matter how dense it is to the rest of us.
If they release a nutter, it's not in their neighbourhood, they never see him again. If they let a dog back out into society, it wont be walking past their house when it savages a child, it's always somewhere else. When the inevitable next offence happens it's miles away, doesnt impact them and may not ever come to their attention. So they can continue to act like the do, condeming the rest of us to repeat offences for ever and nothing happens. Basically they dont give a monkey's.
Either we make sure they live near the results of their judgements (it'll never happen) so they share the pain or we find some other way of linking their performance to keeping their job - like ordinary people in real jobs!
How about getting a local league table set up to show how right they were as time goes by. When a thief reoffends a few days after being let loose Judge Alzeheimer gets a black mark, when a dog attacks again he gets more black marks, when the local nutter finally butchers someone more marks again. Then, and here's the nice part, the results are published regularly and we get to sack the bottom 10% every year!!
If they knew we were watching and it was no longer a job for life, I wonder how many more crims would get what they deserve (ie jail) instead of ASBOs, fines, parole, or nothing?
Maybe when we get elected Police Commissioners under DemTories localism agenda we can get him/her to set up something like this to start to get the law back on our side?
A case for elected magistrates and judges.
Assuming just for a moment that Osya shouldn't face death just because the humans have failed to control him, it is still not in his interests to be handed back to the person who failed in her duty of care towards the dog and the public.
Where is the RSPCA? In the past they have opposed returning animals to soppy owners whose only 'crime' has been to be a bit too generous with the dinners and too lax with the walkies.
Looking at the cast of characters I thought: why has she got a barrister down for a magistrate's court case in Brighton?
Here's the barrister, Giles Morrison, all the way from chambers in London. It's difficult to tell from photos, but from the look of Asiya Sitaeva, she might have more money than usual about her. The previous fines didn't seem to worry her, nor the costs of this case.
The magistrate, Dr Sue Berry is a general-purpose social history academic at Sussex University's Centre of Community Engagement. That's the part which runs the adult education and leisure courses.
So we've got one old duck who would rather pay a barrister than properly look after her own dog, and another old duck on the bench who goes soppy in the presence of said the nicely-spoken young man and wishes to show off her community engagement credentials, and finally a young gun trying to build a practice in a competitive market who doesn't actually give a stuff about the dog, so long as he produces a win for his client.
The case was handled by council Animal Welfare officers, although some of the costs may (eventually) be recovered from Sitaeva. JohnR is absolutely correct: until we find a way of bringing the consequences of their decisions back to the magistrate, we stand no chance of sorting this out.
In this case: make the magistrate or the barrister look after the dog.
"Once again no one is ever held to account therefore 'lessons are NOT learned' by those in positions of power and responsibility..."
Indeed. I think WoaR's suggestion would improve matters considerably...
"Maybe when we get elected Police Commissioners under DemTories localism agenda we can get him/her to set up something like this to start to get the law back on our side?"
Whatever we do, we need to do something. Even when the witnesses are impeccable and the suspect bang to rights with previous, they inexplicably get no punishment.
"Where is the RSPCA? In the past they have opposed returning animals to soppy owners whose only 'crime' has been to be a bit too generous with the dinners and too lax with the walkies. "
I suspect this one suggests no good publicity for them (hot-shot lawyer on the case!), so they are avoiding it like the plague...
"In this case: make the magistrate or the barrister look after the dog."
I love the way you think! ;)
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