The Death of George Dinham
The death of George Dinham in Wandsworth on Friday 9th May (reported in today's media) was a tragedy. What is perhaps worse for his family is the current speculation and mis-reporting of the circumstances of his death. At best, some of the reporting is being "economical with the truth", at worst it is intentionally distorted and trying to spread unnecessary and unjustified fears to hundreds of dog owners.
It is very difficult to ascertain the FACTS of the evening although the Daily Mirror article
(http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12963073&method=full&sit
eid=50143&headline=DAD%20KILLED%20BY%20PET%20DOG) does seem to contain a great
deal of detail. There are also various theories being promoted both in the media and on the internet. Much of this is probably ill-informed. We do not yet know what actually happened.
Some "facts" can be identified:
- It appears that Mr Dinham's dog Ben may indeed have been a Staffordshire Bull Terrier. This will not be known for certain unless and until a qualified dog judge has seen Ben but the issue is probably irrelevant.
- The actual cause of Mr Dinham's death will not be known until the Coroner has reported his findings.
- It is reported that Mr Dinham occasionally suffered from epileptic fits. There are at least two previous reported cases of people suffering from epileptic fits being killed by their own pet dog. One I am pretty sure was in Belgium or Holland a couple of years ago and the other in the UK in November 2001. (See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/uk/1156305.stm).
- There is talk of Ben having "attacked" a 9 year-old girl just 3 months ago. The facts seem to indicate that he jumped up, did not bite, but that the girl suffered a few minor scratches as a result of being pushed over. i.e. the incident appears to be irrelevant to the current situation.
- We are told that Ben was always walked on a muzzle. This appears to be because he was not good with other dogs and nothing to do with any previous incident with people.
- Mr Dinham's own family are repeatedly quoted as saying that George and Ben were devoted to one another and that it can only have been a tragic accident. Indeed Mr Dinham's brother says that Ben would nip George to help bring him around after an epileptic attack.
The police (we are told) are apparently trying to decide whether Ben should be put down. Obviously that would be illegal without Mr Dinham's heirs' permission.
The DDA does not apply since the incident happened in a private dwelling and anyway, they can hardly claim under section 5 that they cannot locate the owner.
Unless the owners (presumably Mr Dinham's brothers) agree to Ben being destroyed then it would require a difficult court case and who exactly would be prosecuted? What is surely more important is for animal behaviourists to be allowed to test Ben and see if they can ascertain the actual trigger that caused him to bite Mr Dinham.
We are already hearing of Staffords being rejected by families scared by this story. You can be sure that if the Coroner eventually rules that Ben was in fact not the actual cause of Mr Dinham's death, or that Ben is not a SBT it will not warrant even a single column inch tucked away on page 17.
Finally, IF Ben is a dangerous to the public then he should be destroyed - irrespective of what breed he is. Would this week old story have been given such prominence (Mirror, Sun, Guardian, BBC TV, BBC news, many Internet news sites) if the dog had not been described as a "Staffordshire Bull Terrier"? Did YOU see any coverage when 25 year-old "young mother" Kirsty Ross was killed in what
appear to be identical circumstances by her pet Doberman in 2000, never mind front page headlines and extensive radio/TV coverage?
The news story should be "what actually happened to George Dinham" and "are there lessons to be learned from his tragic death". It's a shame that once again "professional journalists" seem to have missed the most important issue. Will they never learn?
David Levy