Nicholas James Hildebrand, aged 26, of Shakespeare Road, Dartford, was sentenced on Monday after admitting allowing his Staffordshire bull terrier, Banksy, to be dangerously out of control.And his excuse for the escape of his out of control beast, who had to be dragged off an elderly man by his flatmate?
Defending Hildebrand, Giles Morrison said: “When Mr Hildebrand went out, he thought the window was closed.Well I’m sure it was genuine. It always is, when in the dock.
“He was not well at the time and was on medication which may have stopped him from making necessary steps to make sure he was secure.
“He has expressed genuine remorse for what happened to Mr Keane and his dog.”
So what action was taken?
The court decided he should be:WOOOOHOOOO! About time a real punishment was….
1. Castrated
2. Muzzled in a public place
3. Kept on a lead of 2m or less when in public
4. Always under the control of a responsible adult of 16 years or over
5. Never taken within 100m of Priory Hill
6. To be micro-chipped
7. To wear a clearly legible ID disc with Hildebrand’s mother’s name on
8. Under the care of Hildebrand's mother until he moves to secure accommodation
Oh. Wait.
9. His mother to take care of Banksy until Hildebrand finds a new home that is approved secure by Kent Constabulary.*sigh*
I guess it was the dog they were talking about….
"biting his hands, groin and head. "
ReplyDeleteWhy on the earth did the court not have the dog killed straight away and the owner charged with serious assault?
Bloody Brits and their overly sentimental attachment to anything with fur and soulful eyes.
It's a DOG not a child, dear. It doesn't 'love' you....it'd snack on your rotting corpse if it needed to.
I'm a big fan of dogs but even I understand that allowing this dog to live is a mistake. It has attacked a human, it attacked another dog without any provovation after diving through an open window.
ReplyDeleteThe animal is clearly dangerous. Put it down.
When I was a child my grandfather had dogs for the farmhouse and stables. One of his favourites was a "ratter", a little Jack Russell.
ReplyDeleteOne day it bit my sister and tried to prevent anyone going to her aid. My grandfather, a gentle man, shot it there and then.
He loved that dog.
From the outset, I'll admit, I'm not a dog lover ..
ReplyDeleteHaving been bitten, as a child, by a neighbour's Airedale .. I've had a long antipathy towards dogs & wouldn't give one house-room ..
However, attacks by "out-of-control" dogs seem to be becoming an almost daily occurrence ..
Something needs to be done to address the problem ..
To that end, I would suggest that all dog owners, no matter the breed .. nor size of the dog, be required to carry annual, Third Party Insurance of at least £5,000 ..
Genuine, responsible owners would, I suspect pay readily .. if they love their animals, as much as they claim to do ..
It should discourage all the irresponsible scrotes .. because any stray or loose dog would be impounded & humanely destroyed .. as would the dog belonging to anyone found to be without insurance ..
CH,that's all well and good but will only financially punish the people diligent enough to insure their dogs. Do you honestly believe the chavs and pikeys, the ones who tend to have dangerous dogs as status symbols, will dip into their pockets to comply with the law when they won't even tax and insure their cars and vans?
ReplyDeleteHow will this be policed? Via an Automatic Doggy Disc Recognition system? Remember that dog licences were scrapped because, with so many dogs being kept as pets, the system was impossible to police.
My Springer bitch is insured both for medical expenses and public liability. The cost of just the public liability element per month would be an extremely difficult stretch, perhaps impossible, to anyone receiving a state pension as a sole source of income. Don't forget that Huhne the Loon is already robbing them (and us) blind.
Hi Lynne ..
ReplyDeleteI fully appreciate the validity of all the points which you raise ..
As you say, they're virtually the same points used to justify doing away with dog licences ..
But unless we're prepared to turn a blind eye to the regularity with which children and/or other dogs are being attacked .. something must be done ..
Where I live, it seems that just about every household has a dog .. and I get fed up of them crapping in my garden or on the pavement, barking, howling or whining in the small hours etc ..
Its a thorny & emotive issue and I wouldn't expect us to agree about it ..
Given that Hildebrand is carefully described as a father of one and a supermarket employee, there is a chance that this is genuinely the case of the dog behaving unpredictably. Jumping right out of the window is going some as a challenge. Other details are peculiar - such as the partner 'waking up and running out'. It sounds more like the adult in charge left something open but the charge has been made against Hildebrand himself as the owner, although right that moment he didn't have control of the dog to lose.
ReplyDeleteIt is also possible - a wild guess - that the court didn't want to destroy the dog if the child is fond of it. It's one thing to send Banksy to a new home, another to put it to sleep.
I'm betting there is slightly more in this story than meets the eye, and that's why the court hasn't done the obvious thing and have the dog put down in this case.
That shouldn't be taken to imply any fault on the part of the victim, who was minding their own business and had every right to be in a public place.
CH sounds like you've got a lot of selfish bastards who happen to be dog owners as neighbours. My sympathies.
ReplyDelete"that the court didn't want to destroy the dog if the child is fond of it"
ReplyDeleteUHm surely if the dog has contact with children then that's MORE reason for the court to have it killed on the spot?
They sent the dog to live with Nana so perhaps the risk to the child is what they they are trying to stop. The implication is Nana is much better at keeping dogs, and the conditions are stringent.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I'd have said 'end of', but that's much easier to say when you aren't acutally standing there dealing with grief-stricken pet keepers.
"One day it bit my sister and tried to prevent anyone going to her aid. My grandfather, a gentle man, shot it there and then. "
ReplyDeleteI suspect everyone of our generation has - or can recall - a similar tale.
We've seemingly become far too sentimental and clearly ascribe human traits to animals.
"To that end, I would suggest that all dog owners, no matter the breed .. nor size of the dog, be required to carry annual, Third Party Insurance of at least £5,000 .."
Unfortunately, that would needlessly penalise responsible owners, and the chavs and lowlifes would ignore it, as they do every other requirement, as Lynne points out.
"But unless we're prepared to turn a blind eye to the regularity with which children and/or other dogs are being attacked .. something must be done .."
'Something', yes. But not a blanket answer of the type the politicians always seek. Remember, these attacks rarely come out of the blue, so it isn't true that the authorities are in the dark.
Often, there's been a number of complaints and incidents that have simply been ignored.
"...there is a chance that this is genuinely the case of the dog behaving unpredictably. Jumping right out of the window is going some as a challenge."
And yet his insistence to the flatmate that the dog not be allowed out might also mean he knows of its nature?