Why a mother’s fight for justice continues after daughter’s dog attack

The 2-year-old mastiff-cross after the first recorded attack. This photo was taken by Hamilton Animal Control just four months before it attacked an 8-year-old girl in Hastings.

Warning: Graphic image

A mum wants change after an 8-year-old girl suffered gruesome injuries when a menacing dog attacked and bit her on the face at a Hastings property.

The 2-year-old mastiff cross dog had already attacked another person in Hamilton just four months earlier, and its owner had been ordered to neuter, muzzle and leash it when out in public by Hamilton City Council.

Records show the dog Leo had attacked a member of its owner’s family, also biting her on the face, and they also suggest the dog had attacked another child in Taupō before that.

After the attack on 8-year-old girl Poppy*, the dog was seized by Hastings District Council and euthanised and the owner was prosecuted.

The attack on Poppy was classed by the council as 34 out of 35 in degree of seriousness, with 35 being death.

A judge ordered the owner to do 80 hours of community work and banned her from owning dogs for five years.

Poppy’s mother Katie Mines is now calling for better collaboration between councils to ensure orders to control dangerous dogs are followed through.

Hamilton City Council says it is satisfied the appropriate process and action was taken.

The attack

Katie Mines was preparing dinner on a summer’s evening in 2020 and her daughter Poppy was on a playdate next door.

“There was yelling and screaming coming from the house where my daughter was,” Katie said.

“I just ran. I had to go out the gate and down a driveway. But when I got there Poppy had gone. There were just two women and a dog there.”

Katie said the women were inconsolable and pacing backward and forwards.

“They kept saying they were sorry but I didn’t know for what. I kept asking ‘where is Poppy?’. Finally, they told me she had been taken to hospital.”

Heart pounding, and in her pyjamas, Katie rushed to the hospital. “I didn’t know if she was dead or alive.”

She arrived to find her daughter being assessed by a doctor with a large bandage on her face, surrounded by a nurse and “a couple of other people”.

“Poppy was just sitting there quietly, her school uniform covered in blood. She was in shock.”

The doctor told Katie it was a dog attack and showed her the wound.

Graphic image: Poppy (not her real name) was left with horrific injuries after a dog attack in December 2020.

“The dog had bitten her in the face right on her lips. Nearly her entire top lip was torn off. It was horrific but I couldn’t react, I didn’t want to scare her.”

She was flown to Wellington Hospital for emergency surgery but part of her top lip, which had been picked up and stored in a zip-lock bag, was not able to be reattached.

Four years later

Katie is still trying to come to terms with the fact the dog had attacked before.

Recently she found out she could request information from police and councils under the OIA and LGOIMA.

What Katie read when she got the information from Hamilton City and Hastings District councils angered and saddened her.

Documents showed Hastings District Council impounded the dog and in its notice of retention to the owner wrote: “HDC believes that the release of the dog would threaten the safety of any person, stock, poultry, domestic pet or protected wildlife.

“If Hamilton City Council had taken the same action just four months earlier, Poppy would still have lips and she would still be smiling,” Katie said.

“She doesn’t like smiling now because the inside of her lip shows. She recently came home with school class photos and was really upset about the individual ones.

“She also would not need to be facing further surgery.”

Hamilton attack response ‘unlikely to have made an impact on the incident’

Hamilton City Council Safety and Resilience Unit director Kelvin Powell said they were satisfied the appropriate process and action was taken after Leo’s attack on a family member in Hamilton in August 2020.

“Our team thoroughly investigated the incident and Leo’s background, including reaching out to several other councils where he was understood to have spent time previously,” Powell said.

“This included a Hastings address provided by the owner as their place of residence. The investigations showed no recorded history of aggression and given the circumstances of the August 2020 incident within a closed family event, it was determined that the most appropriate action was to impound Leo, issue an infringement notice, and classify Leo as menacing.”

He said while dogs classified as menacing are required to be desexed under Hamilton City Council’s Dog Control Bylaw, Leo left Hamilton shortly after the incident and returned to Hastings, where desexing is not a requirement for menacing classified dogs and where the Hamilton council has no jurisdiction to ensure desexing takes place.

“Desexing is a requirement of menacing classified dogs in Hamilton to help reduce the dog’s urge to roam, however, it does not reduce its level of aggression.

“Therefore, even if the desexing of Leo had occurred following August 2020, it is unlikely to have made an impact on the incident in Hastings in December 2020, which occurred at a private address and not while the dog was roaming.

“We acknowledge the significant impact that the December 2020 dog attack has had,” Powell said.

‘Laughing her way through the system’

Katie says the dog owner’s movements suggested she was “laughing her way through the system, acting with impunity knowing no one can stop her”.

“The fact remains that although the owner was ordered to neuter, lease and muzzle the dog after the Hamilton attack, none of that was done when it attacked Poppy just four months later in Hawke’s Bay.

“Nobody followed through. What is the point of all that paperwork if no one follows through.”

Katie claims less than two years after the attack she saw the dog owner “with two large staffy- or pitbull-looking dogs, off the lead and one of which had clearly just had pups”.

Hastings District Council regulatory solutions manager John Payne said that after receiving multiple reports of the defendant being seen with dogs, they were finally able to contact her.

They had tried before but each time she had left the scene.

“She advised us that she had been looking after two dogs but had returned them to their owner.

“When asked for details she provided information that corroborated this. The dogs were registered to another person,” Payne said.

“We reminded her that under the current disqualification, she is not permitted to have any dogs in her care. She apologised and assured us it won’t happen again.”

Hastings currently has 149 dogs classified as menacing – 83 have been desexed and 66 are pending.

“Only a judge can order the destruction of a dog, or an owner can arrange to destroy their dog, or they can surrender the dog to us,” Payne said.

‘She’s strong and determined’

Katie has spoken at length with police, who have told her previously they couldn’t do anything about a dog attack because there was no motive and that it was a matter for councils.

She said she was not after revenge.

“I just don’t want anyone else to go through this.

“Despite what Poppy has been through she is an amazing little person. After it happened she went to school with bandages on her face, she had to use a straw to eat and couldn’t talk properly. That’s a huge thing for a kid to go through.

“Recently she was preparing for a speech day at school. I sat with her to talk about ideas.

“I said ‘Darling, are you going to talk about what happened to you?’

“She said no, it was her business, and she didn’t want anyone feeling sorry for her. That speaks volumes about who she is.

“I’m so proud of her. She was on the school council last year and will be head girl this year. She’s strong and determined.”

Poppy has been spending time in the US with her dad and recently had a consultation about future surgery. That will have to wait until she is fully grown – the impacts of the attack following her into adulthood.

* Not her real name

LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.