Dog owners ask court for new hearing

11.45am

Two men sentenced to jail for owning a dog which savaged a young girl in Auckland in January will ask a judge today to rehear the charges.

Brian Hill, 44, and Henry Owen, 55, were due in the Auckland District Court today to ask Judge James O'Donovan to vacate their earlier guilty pleas and rehear the charges.

In March the two men admitted their American staffordshire terrier Joey savaged seven-year-old Carolina Anderson and inflicted horrific facial injuries in an Auckland park.

Both men were sentenced to jail for two months but Owen's lawyer, Peter Boylan, said today the two men now wanted to go back to square one and enter not guilty pleas.

He said there were issues over the disclosure of the police file and the timing of the attack.

Mr Boylan said both men said they were in an Auckland supermarket 27 minutes before Carolina arrived in hospital. That would make it almost impossible for them to get to the park with Joey in their Fiat Uno, allow time for the attack and for the family to rush Carolina to hospital where she arrived at 10.25pm.

He said they two man were "lying low" for a few days after the attack.

"They couldn't work out how it was Joey."

However, they thought if everyone had said it was Joey, it must have been him, Mr Boylan said.

He said once they saw the police file they could not work out "how the hell Joey had done this because of the timing".

Mr Boylan said they had always been concerned for Carolina and one of the reasons they had pleaded guilty so quickly was so she would not have to go through any more trauma.

Police had earlier said they were satisfied the evidence leading to the convictions was robust and would withstand close scrutiny.

Carolina has undergone hours of surgery since the attack and faces further operations into her teens.

- NZPA