Estelle Sinkins, a freelance arts writer and former arts editor of The Witness, watched helplessly, screaming and wildly throwing things at the snarling cross-German Shepherds, as her son James, who had suffered since birth from a heart defect and curvature of the spine, was dragged off his bicycle while playing in their garden in Geekie Road.
A Howick mother whose special-needs son died in hospital at the weekend after being attacked by a neighbour’s two large dogs, will never forget the horror of watching the dogs sink their teeth into the neck and leg of her small 8-year-old.
The dogs, which were later removed and destroyed after reports to the police and the SPCA, were the same animals that killed the Sinkinses’ family cat last Christmas and also killed their black Labrador two years ago, Sinkins told The Mercury.
She said she and her husband, Graydon, had, on those occasions, asked for the dogs to be put down, but had eventually given in to their neighbour’s pleading for them not do so.
A tearful Shanaaz Alladin, the owner of the dogs, Titan and Seth, who acknowledged but preferred not to comment on the previous attacks, said on Sunday that she was not home when her pets attacked James.
“I have a big fence. I looked for holes in it but could find nothing, so have no idea how this happened,” she said, adding that she was awaiting results of police investigations.
No comments:
Post a Comment