Girl, 5, scarred for life after stranger’s dog savaged her face
A FIVE-YEAR-OLD girl was left scarred for life after a stranger’s dog bit her face.
Molly’s face was “ripped off” by the dog while she was at a home with her mum who was looking at some furniture advertised on Facebook.
Mum Charmaine Beresford has now spoken out of her horror as the dog owner, Juliet Marsh, was found guilty of being the owner of a dog dangerously out of control.
And she said she was devastated her little girl now asked her “mummy, am I still beautiful?”
Recounting the traumatic attack, the mum, of Honeybourne, Worcestershire, said she had headed to the stranger’s home in Chipping, Campden, after seeing an advertisement for some bunk beds.
Charmaine said Marsh then offered to take Molly to get a drink downstairs while her parents looked at the beds – with the horrified couple hearing screams just minutes later.
She said: “Molly had had her face ripped off by the dog.”
The mum then screamed at the dog owner to call an ambulance, saying: “Four or five times I asked her to phone the ambulance. I had to scream at her.
“I wasn’t going to prosecute or anything like that.
“But then the surgeon who treated Molly said ‘this is a dangerous dog. You need to prosecute’.”
DANGEROUS DOG ORDER
Marsh, appeared at Cheltenham Magistrates Court on September 19 and was found guilty of being the owner of a dog dangerously out of control.
The court ordered that the dog is kept under control and fitted with a muzzle in a public place and is never left alone in the company of children under 17.
Marsh must carry out 60 hours of unpaid work in the next 12 months. She was fined £775 with a surcharge of £85.
Charmaine said the attack had been “horrendous” and added: “We were kind enough to let her keep the dog. I just want to make other people aware.
“I have got two dogs and Molly is fine with them and with family members’ dogs but if we see strangers dogs out in public she’ll cling to me like a leech.
“But other than that she is coping really well. We are lucky because that dog could have taken her life that night. Even though she is scarred we are lucky.”
Devastatingly, she said her daughter
MOST READ IN NEWS
In 2017, a dog owner was jailed for four years after her staffie mauled 12 kids in a playground in Northumberland in May 2016, leaving a girl’s leg looking like ‘Swiss cheese’.
That year, more than 7,500 people needed hospital treatment after being savaged by out-of-control dogs.
Common injuries included finger amputations, horror scarring and severe nerve damage.
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