My client, Andy James was minding his own business in a suburb of Oxford when he was attacked by a police dog who had been released by his handler to locate another man suspected of involvement in a burglary.
The dog handler of Thames Valley Police lost sight of his dog, which then launched an unprovoked attack upon Andy causing serious wounds to his arms and legs.
To add insult to injury, when the police officer belatedly arrived at the scene and called his dog off, he promptly arrested Andy on suspicion of being the man wanted in connection with the burglary and Andy was hauled off to St Aldates police station – although he was not there for long before they had to transport him to hospital for treatment for his injuries. Thereafter, he was, of course, released without charge because he was not the man the officer had been looking for.
I was instructed by Andy to pursue a claim on his behalf against Thames Valley Police obtained the training records and dog bite reports for the police officer and police dog ‘team’ involved in this incident and established that the dog had bitten 12 people over a 3 year period – an unusually high number even taking account the nature of a police dog’s work.
In an earlier incident in April 2012 the records showed that the dog had gone underneath some stairs in a block of flats to locate a suspect and had bitten the suspect on the arm. There was no evidence whatsoever that the suspected offender had been attempting to escape or that he had attacked the dog, and therefore this bite may also have been unprovoked.
Further records showed that the operational licence for this team of officer and dog was indeed withdrawn in November 2012, some 8 months prior to the incident with my client Andy. This was as a result of a safety issue involving the dog biting in a situation where he should only have barked. Police dogs are specifically trained to bark to call their handler’s attention once they have located and ‘cornered’ a suspect and are not supposed to bite unless the suspect attempts to flee or to attack them. Notwithstanding this issue, following remedial training, the officer and dog were re-licensed for operational duties just 2 weeks later.
However, their operational license was again withdrawn in June 2013 following an incident when the police dog was found to have ‘self-deployed’ over and above what he was trained to do – in other words to have delivered an unnecessary bite to another ‘cornered’ suspect, rather than just barking to alert his handler (who was very close by) and ‘guarding’ the suspect.
When a police dog teams’ operational licence is withdrawn, guidance contained within the National Police Dog Assessment Model requires that re-assessment be undertaken within the next 30 days following remedial training.
Accordingly, an assessment of the team took place later in June 2013 (only a month before the attack on Andy) as a result of which the officer and dog were re-authorised for operational duty notwithstanding the following comments made by their training manager – We identified the dog is still looking for a quick reward and to some extent appears to have been conditioned for it. If the reward is not evident he will either commute back to the handler or look to self reward (i.e. that the dog takes a bite or bites out of the suspect, even a suspect who is not attempting to flee or resist the dog, simply in order to satisfy its animal instincts).
Yet another completely unjustified biting incident occurred in November 2013 when the dog reacted to a person who was walking up behind him and his handler (and who was in no way a suspect for any criminal offence) by biting this unfortunate passer-by. Once again, the dog team was suspended from duty, and this time action (long overdue) was taken to place the dog with a different handler in January 2014.
Sadly, no such action had been taken earlier, despite all the ‘warning signs’ and this dysfunctional police team – comprising a dog who was too prone to bite with a handler who had insufficient control over his animal – were allowed to patrol the streets, resulting in the savage attack upon Andy in July 2013.
Following the institution of court proceedings Thames Valley Police agreed to pay Andy £10,000 plus his legal costs in regard to the injuries inflicted upon him, which included permanent scars on his arms and legs.
Name changed.
Also read: My Thoughts on “Finn’s Law.”
