Owner threatened to have dog ‘rip out throats’ of officers

TWO police officers were badly bitten by a savage dog as they tried to deal with its aggressive owner, Manchester Crown Court was told.

The pair had gone to 38-year-old Anthony Madden’s Ripponden Road address last August to check on him after a garbled emergency call in which he threatened self-harm. When they arrived, music was blaring from the house and he refused to let them in.

Andrew Evans, prosecuting, said the Staffordshire bull terrier was snarling and barking and at one point broke loose and ran into the street to attack another dog. Madden told the officers: “I’ll get my dog to rip your throats out.”

The dog bit a female officer’s arm and fingers and she was forced to hit it with her baton. It turned on a second officer and bit him on the arm as he went in the house to reason with Madden - who was so aggressive the officer had to knock him out.

Sentencing him, Mr Recorder Guy Mathieson said he was giving Madden his “absolute last chance” by not sending him to prison immediately.

He said: “When these officers who were only doing their job, knocked at your door, you could have been co-operative and helpful. Instead you were angry, aggressive and confrontational.

“You later claimed the police have an issue with you, but clearly it is you that has an issue with everybody else.”

Madden pleaded to charges of affray and being in charge of a dog dangerously out of control and was given six months on each count, suspended for 18 months and was made subject to a 12-month supervision and community order.

The Recorder decided against ordering the dog’s destruction as he believed it generally didn’t pose a danger. The officers hadn’t wanted it put down. But Madden was banned from dog ownership for five years.

Ben Knight, defending, said his client had had a long-running problem with drugs which he was now battling, but said he had sought refuge in alcohol instead.