(Video) Guilty: Owner of fighting dog who ignored policemen's screams of pain as it went on rampage

 
Paul Cheston6 August 2012
WEST END FINAL

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The owner of a pit bull called Poison faces jail today after his dog mauled five policemen during a raid on his home.

The animal tore the flesh of the officers as Symieon Robinson-Pierre told them: “You should have just knocked the door. Mate, there's nothing we can do”.

He ignored the victims’ cries as the dog inflicted severe hand, arm and leg wounds in a 30-minute attack.

Finally armed officers arrived to blast the 29 kilogram dog four times at close range with a shotgun.

The attack was so horrific that one officer fought back tears in court as he described how a brave colleague was savaged by the dog.

Prosecutor Sam Brown described the aftermath as resembling the “ sickbay after the Battle of Trafalgar.”

Robinson-Pierre, 25, was convicted by a jury at Inner London Crown Court in less than an hour of three charges of owning a dog that was dangerously out of control in public.

After the verdicts were returned, he admitted to a further charge of being in possession of a fighting dog.

He will be sentenced at a date to be fixed.

The attack happened when police went to his home in Stratford in March last year.

PC Martin Corderoy was bitten on his right thigh and when PC Marc Merrit used his baton to force the dog's jaws open, it turned on the second officer and bit his forearm.

PC Duncan West told jurors he had tried to pin the snarling beast down with a riot shield.

He welled up as he recalled how the dog was about to bite his face until PC Steve Bones hit it with a baton.

“I tried to pin the dog down with a public order shield,” he said. “I was leaning down on the shield trying to prevent any further attacks.

“But the dog managed to wriggle out from under the shield and I thought I was going to get bitten on the face.

“PC Bones struck it with a baton extremely hard, and it turned its attention to him rather than me.”

After a brief pause PC West added: “It was now trying to attack PC Bones, and in an act of selfless bravery, he grabbed it from the back of the neck, and managed to pin it down with his hands.

“In doing so he got an injury to his right hand, which was bleeding very heavily. Initially I though he had lost one of his fingers.

“PC Bones was trying to hold its neck on the floor with one of his hands, with the other in the air to try and slow the blood flow.”

PC West said that despite the dog having a steel noose around its neck, they were still concerned that it would escape and cause more havoc.

“There was 16 stone of me, effectively sitting on its back, and it was still trying to get up on its hind legs,” he said.

“They were able to put the noose around the dogs neck, but I felt the dog would be too powerful, and could pull the pole out of someone's hands.”

Robinson-Pierre was found guilty over the injuries to PCs Lee Bush, Paul Garrard and Bones.

He was not being prosecuted for the initial attack on PC Corderoy which happened inside the house and was cleared on the judge’s direction over the attack on PC Merrit which occurred in the garden and not in a public place.

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