KEY POINTS:
One of the owners of the dog that mauled Carolina Anderson has been collared walking a similar animal in the park where the young Auckland girl was attacked five years ago.
But Brian Hill is making no excuses for potentially inflaming an already volatile situation, proclaiming yesterday: "I can have 10 dogs if I like."
In 2003 Hill, 50, and former partner Thomas Owen, 60, were jailed for two months after their American Staffordshire terrier, Joey, attacked Carolina in Auckland's Cox's Bay Park, leaving the then 7-year-old permanently disfigured. The men hid from police for days and later denied owning the dog that had inflicted the injuries.
Now it has emerged Hill has been spotted regularly walking a Staffordshire terrier cross through the park and along Auckland's busy Ponsonby and Jervois Rds. The Herald on Sunday last week spoke to several people who said they often saw him being "dragged along" by the dog through the suburban streets of Ponsonby.
Yesterday, Hill was again out walking the dog and when confronted said: "If you had children would you give them up because someone said there was something wrong with them?"
He said he was not the legal owner of the dog, which is registered and which he calls Texas, but conceded he took it on daily three-hour walks.
Hill said yesterday that all he was guilty of was "walking dogs for other people. She is absolutely not a risk. She is a lovely dog. This dog has to be walked. There is nothing worse than a dog that is caged up."
He couldn't understand opposition to him having a dog under his charge because he had been punished for what had happened to Carolina.
And despite his guilty plea he said it was impossible to say that Joey had been responsible for the injuries inflicted on Carolina.
He also questioned why she had been in the park at 10pm on the night of the attack and not at home.
"Children shouldn't be playing in the park at that time of night," he said.
Carolina's father John Anderson told the Herald on Sunday that while it was legal for Hill to have a dog, he questioned the appropriateness of the breed he was walking.
He declined to comment further on the matter and said Carolina was on holiday in Italy for three months.
SPCA chief executive Bob Kerridge said Hill had served his time and was entitled to own a dog, but he would be happier if it wasn't an American Staffordshire terrier cross.
New Zealand Kennel Club president John Perfect agreed and said it was of "great concern" that Hill was regularly out in public with another dog, especially as he appeared to show no contrition for the events of five years ago.
