Tell Me Again How ‘Life On The Dole Isn’t To Be Envied’..?

Jobless Kirk John Fleming, 31, of Alexandra Road, Newport, was sentenced under the 1991 Dangerous Dogs Act, using new guidelines for courts in England and Wales which came into force on August 20.

He got nine months. Yes, it’s not enough. But it’s something, at least.

The victim underwent three operations and spent a week in hospital after what Judge William Gaskell described as a sustained and repeated attack.

She was lucky – her dogs didn’t survive.

The court heard how the complainant, Kay Piatek was walking her three Yorkshire Terriers in Pill on September 24, 2011.

Mrs Piatek turned onto Mendalgief Road when a white Pitbull cross and a brown Staffordshire Terrier ran towards her. The Pitbull, known as Cain, jumped onto her back and knocked her over.

One of Mrs Piatek's dogs, Alfie, ran home and she was trying to protect another, Maxi, when Cain bit into her left arm.

The defendant then appeared, punching his own dog and lying on top of it, but Cain and the Staffordshire Terrier managed to get at Maxi and dragged him away before mauling him to death. The third dog, Mitch, died shortly after the incident.

And this wasn’t the first time they’d attacked. It never is, is it?

Fleming was taken to Newport Central Police Station and his dogs were seized.

The court heard about one of two previous incidents involving Cain, where the Pitbull jumped a garden fence and attacked a Labrador while a five-year-old boy was nearby.

Mr Smyth, mitigating, said Fleming had taken steps to secure the animals, and that the dogs had been taken out of the house by a trusted friend of the defendant's, not the defendant himself.

I guess in underclass parlance a ‘trusted friend’ is…what?

The brown Staffordshire Terrier is currently involved in other proceedings but the white Pitbull, Cain, is to be destroyed and Fleming was disqualified from owning dogs for three years.

Is that it? Is that all?

No order for compensation or costs was made because Fleming has not been employed for five years.

Really? How’d he manage to feed two large, powerful dogs, then? Come to think of it, how did this guy?

The court heard it had cost Gwent Police more than £10,000 to keep Fleming's dogs in designated kennels since the incident in September last year.

So, the taxpayer is out £10000, the elderly lady has lost her two pets with no compensation, and we will continue to go on spending money to keep this lowlife housed and fed while he's behind bars?

This country truly has gone to the dogs!