[2025] UKUT 262 (AAC)

The material parts of the FTT’s reasons for its decision read as follows (the interested party is referred to as “the appellant”, as she was the appellant before the FTT) and are worth setting out in full given CICA’s criticisms of them:

“DECISION OF THE TRIBUNAL

4.

The unanimous DECISION of the tribunal was to allow the appeal under §4 of the Scheme and held:

a.

Both the dog owner and the dog walker were guilty of an offence on 20 December 2022 under section 3 Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 of having a dog which was dangerously out of control in a public place, namely a remote cycle path near Colclough Lane in Stoke on Trent when the dog lunged at the appellant and bit and wounded her left arm…; the dog would not release its grip on the appellant’s left arm and the dog walker could not control it; the appellant pulled hard to release her left arm whereupon she fell and suffered a broken right wrist. This is the “the index incident”.

b.

The offence was a crime of violence within the meaning of paragraph 4 of the Scheme and §4(1)(c) of Annex B thereto.

6.

This was an appeal against CICA’s Review decision of 24 July 2023 refusing the application under §4 of the Scheme and §4(1)(c) of Annex B thereof, on the ground that there is no police evidence that the dog was set upon the appellant.

7.

The issues for the Tribunal to decide were whether a crime had been committed and, if so, whether it was a crime of violence within the meaning of the Scheme….

[The FTT then set the relevant provision of the 2012 Scheme including paragraph 4 of the Scheme and paragraphs 1, 2 and 4 of Annex B to the Scheme.]

Background facts

[These include what I have already set out in paragraph seven above, but also the following:]

11.On at least one previous occasion, several months before the index assault, i.e. in about September 2022, the dog had attacked and bitten a man in an unprovoked attack while he was held unmuzzled by the dog walker on a long retractable lead on the same path. A few days after the index assault the appellant showed this man the photograph [taken of the dog walker and the dog at the scene of the incident on 20 December 2020] whereupon he recognised both the dog walker and the dog as those involved in the previous attack on himself. He advised the appellant of the address of the Take-Away where the dog was kept.

12.

The Tribunal was satisfied on the balance of probabilities and found as a fact that, following this previous dog attack, that the dog keeper knew of the propensity of the dog to attack people who came close to him on this walk…..

13.

On the occasion of the index incident the dog walker held the unmuzzled dog’s long lead, at least 8 to 10 feet long, and stood facing away from the appellant and her husband, but between them and the dog, as they passed him on the path. The appellant thus necessarily passed close to the dog walker, whereupon the dog lunged at her and bit her as described above. The dog walker’s stance confirmed to the Tribunal that the dog walker was fully aware of the dog’s propensity to attack passers by.

14.

A few days after the index incident the appellant passed the information she had obtained from the man who had been attacked in September 2022 to the police. 2 police officers then attended the premises to interview the dog owner and the dog keeper. One of the police officers later confided in the appellant that she had been terrified of the dog on this visit. The dog had been locked in a conservatory and had been fiercely barking and banging at the glass panels to get at the officers while they questioned the dog owner and the dog keeper.

15.

On that occasion, the dog owner denied all knowledge of the index incident and the dog walker indicated that he could speak no English. He managed however to communicate that he had not told the dog owner of the attack on the appellant. The dog owner confirmed the dog was kept in the yard at the rear of the premises as a guard dog and handed it over to the police to be destroyed.

16.The Tribunal was satisfied the dog was kept as a guard dog to protect the Take-Away, its owner and the staff employed in it, including the dog walker. The dog’s behaviour trying to get at the police on the occasion of their visit spoke for itself of the dog’s aggressive behaviour. The owner’s behaviour in handing over the dog to be destroyed suggested to the Tribunal that the index incident was not the first occasion when the owner had been made aware of the dog’s aggressive behaviour. The Tribunal was satisfied on the balance of probabilities that, despite his denial to the police, the dog owner knew the dog was powerful, fierce and aggressive with a propensity to attack persons approaching the premises or those working there, including the dog walker while being exercised on walks.

17.The Tribunal held, without hesitation, that the dog owner and the dog keeper were reckless whether or not the appellant would be injured by the dog.

18.But Ms Iqbal [for CICA] rightly submitted that the appellant had to show that the dog owner or the dog keeper intended the dog to harm the appellant in order to qualify for an award under the Scheme….

20.

The Tribunal understood that §4 of Annex B to the Scheme imposes a rebuttable presumption that a crime of violence will not be considered to have been committed if an injury resulted from an animal attack. We considered that in order to rebut the presumption we needed to be satisfied that an assailant intended to hurt the Appellant.

21.

We found this a borderline decision. Given the dog owner and the dog walker both knew of the dog’s propensity for violence and intended that it should attack and hurt persons who either trespassed the premises or approached the persons it was trained to guard, including the dog walker on walks, we considered that if they had not so intended then they would have trained the dog not to attack passers-by, or muzzled it, or held it on a shorter lead, put a greater distance between the dog and passers-by, or otherwise have controlled it. We held in these circumstances there was sufficient evidence to satisfy us, on the balance of probabilities, that the dog owner and the dog walker intended harm to passers-by, including the appellant. The Tribunal recognized there is a thin line between actual intention and recklessness in this case, but we took the view the dog walker probably crossed it and actually intended harm.

22.

Accordingly, the Tribunal held:

a.

this was a large and fierce adult male Alsatian guard dog, which was used with intent to cause injury, within the meaning of paragraph 4(1)(c) of Annex B to the Scheme, to anyone trespassing the guarded premises or threatening the persons living or working there, or perceived by the dog as so doing;

b.

the dog walker was such a person guarded by the dog;

c.

the dog’s use with intent to injure anyone who appeared to threaten the dog walker endured during the walk along the cycle path;

d.

to the knowledge of the dog walker, the dog had a propensity to attack strangers approaching the dog walker having attacked a jogger on the same path a few months earlier;

e.

the dog was neither muzzled nor held on a short lead;

f.

in these circumstances, the offence was a crime of violence.”