Staffie owner receives suspended sentence
Photo for illustration purposes only
A MAN who took pity and took in his friend’s Staffordshire Bull Terrier when he’d wanted to get rid of it was handed a suspended sentence last week in the local district court after the dog bit two random people on the streets of Carlow. Kenneth Joyce, Burrin Arcade, Carlow was handed a sentence of four months’ imprisonment, which was suspended for 12 months, for being the owner of an uncontrolled dog on Tullow Street, Carlow on 28 October last year.
Mr Joyce had pleaded guilty in an earlier court sitting to that offence as well as two counts of having a dog unmuzzled in public, to the dog not having an identity collar on and to not having a dog licence. The offences arose after his dog attacked people on two separate occasions within five days.
Evidence of the dog attacks were heard at a previous court sitting in which Sergeant Hud Kelly outlined the incidences.
He said that the first incident occurred on 28 October 2023, when gardaí were called to Burrin Street after a man was attacked by the dog. He said that the injured party was bitten on the hand and his clothes were torn. He added that the dog hadn’t been muzzled and that it attacked the injured party without any provocation.
That court sitting also heard about the second incident. Sergeant Kelly said that it occurred just five days later, on 2 November, when Mr Joyce was on Tullow Street with the dog. He said that the dog, which was on a lead, jumped up and bit a passerby on the thigh and that the attack was caught on CCTV.
Judge Carthy had been told that the animal had been owned by Mr Joyce’s friend and that when he wanted to get rid of it, Mr Joyce took it instead “with the best of intentions” but that he had not been able to control it.
The court heard that the dog was destroyed shortly after the second attack.
