The trial has been heard at Christchurch District Court. Photo / George Heard
Two dogs who attacked a security officer making a bail check will be put down, a judge has ruled.
Genisis Pure and Kathleen Pure were charged with being the owners of American pit bull terrier Boss and American pit bull cross Naahni involved in the July 16, 2020 attack in Christchurch.
"I didn't think I was going to get out of there," experienced security guard Jason Warden said during evidence in a judge-alone trial before Christchurch District Court Judge Quentin Hicks earlier this week.
Warden was left with injuries to his face, arms, and thigh and needed a night in hospital after the attack.
This afternoon, Judge Hicks ruled that the charges against the dog owners had been made out, and that he had no other option but to issue destruction orders.
The judge said the purpose of any destruction order was not to punish anyone but rather to protect the public's safety, adding it could have been someone collecting for a charity that night.
Before the trial began, Judge Hix asked whether there could be resolution, but defence counsel Richard Peters and Kiran Paima said it had to go ahead because the issue involved whether the dogs would be destroyed.
Christchurch City Council prosecutor Penny Brown said destruction of the dogs followed conviction on these charges, unless there were exceptional circumstances.
"And this is not an exceptional case," she said earlier.
Warden told the court earlier that he was sent to the Redwood, Christchurch address through First Security, on instructions from the Department of Corrections to check electronically monitored bail on an individual.
He had been there a few days before and knew there was a dog present, but it had previously been kept at the back of the house.
When he arrived, he called his office and then spoke through a headset throughout the visit while the phone transmitted from his pocket.
He found the house in darkness. He rattled the gate and whistled, and heard a dog barking - recorded on his phone - but he was adamant that was a dog at another property.
When he went in darkness to the front sliding door, two dogs attacked, biting his thigh and arm, scratching or biting his face and smashing his glasses off.
The recording continued as he struggled and kicked, and yelled at the attacking dogs as he made his way back out the gate. He had to have stitches and spent the night in hospital.
It was dark in the yard but he was sure there had been two dogs attacking him.
"One's attached to my leg, and the other's attached to my arm. There's two dogs," he's heard saying on the recording.
The court heard evidence of the officer being sent incorrectly to the address at the request of the Department of Corrections, because the "subject" of the visit was in Auckland where he had already had a monitoring anklet fitted the previous day.
The trial was told that the dogs had already been classified as dangerous after an attack on a police officer in December 2019.
Kathleen Pure gave a statement saying that there was a gate separating the back from the front of the property.
It was secured by a boulder and a nail, but the dog Boss was able to open it to get to a bowl of cat food on the front deck.
She said: "I love my dogs. I have had them for eight years. I just don't want to lose them. I take full responsibility for what happened."
In evidence, she said that Boss had been able to get through a previous gate, which was replaced.
Until the incident, she did not believe the dogs could get through the new gate to the front of the property.
The security officer said he'd been badly affected by the attack.
"I could not sleep for a quite a while - I had a lot of nightmares. The injuries mended, but I have a scar on my nose," he said.
Both dogs were classified as dangerous in 2019 and work was carried out at the property to ensure they were kept enclosed.
The central issue of the case hung around a gate at the property.
Defence lawyers said the Pures had taken "all reasonable steps" to secure the gate and that no fault lay with them.
But Judge Hix disagreed, saying all of the charges had been made out.
There were few legal precedents where dogs avoided destruction, the court heard.
No fines were imposed.