A woman has been convicted in court after her dog bit a child who was playing in a Middlesbrough street.
The lurcher dog escaped from Gail Ayton’s Marton garden and attacked the youngster by biting her on her upper thigh.
The girl screamed and ran to her father saying she had been bitten.
Two other dogs belonging to Ayton - a Great Dane and a Yorkshire terrier also escaped and were seen as being out of control.
The 44-year-old today appeared at Teesside Magistrates' Court where she admitted one charge of owning a dog which was dangerously out of control in public caused injury and three of owning a dog which was dangerously out of control.
District Judge Martin Walker told Ayton that the dogs would not be destroyed.
Instead he made a contingency order that the dogs must be muzzled and on a lead when in public and they are not to be in the yard of her home without supervision.
The court heard that on October 6 last year Ayton had left her dogs in the yard of her home.
They managed to get out and ran into the street. The lurcher bit a young girl who was playing outside.
Prosecutor Bob Moore said: “Her father heard a scream and his daughter was crying and said she had been bitten by a dog.
"The dog was loose and not on a lead and the owner was nowhere to be seen.”
The court heard that the bite did not break the skin and the injury was minor.
Two dog walkers also came across the lurcher and the other two dogs on the same day.
She said all three were loose in the street.
Mr Moore said the women were walking when the three dogs came towards them.
The lurcher grabbed the bottom of one of the women’s trousers.
The dogs were trying to bit the womens’ dogs before they ran off back to Ayton’s house.
No one was injured or bitten.
John Clish, mitigating, said Ayton was full of remorse and said this was an “isolated incident”.
Ayton was given a 12-month conditional discharge and ordered to pay £100 compensation to the young girl.
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