A man whose French Mastiff bit the face of a woman visiting his home has been locked up after failing to control the dog.

Anthony Armstrong had already been warned about controlling the dog’s behaviour after it injured a ten-year-old girl when it escaped from his Hartlepool house.

The woman was left with blood pouring down her face and left with permanent scarring following the dog's attack in November.

A judge at Teesside Crown Court ruled that the dog, called Bruce, was ‘beyond redemption’ after it failed to respond to specialist training from a dog behaviour expert and ordered its destruction.

The Northern Echo: Anthony Armstrong. Picture: CLEVELAND POLICEAnthony Armstrong. Picture: CLEVELAND POLICE

The injured woman was already afraid of the dog as it would charge at the window whenever she called at Armstrong’s house to visit her friend who lodged with him.

Caroline McGurk, prosecuting, said the dog turned on the woman when she helped the defendant to apply some cream for its skin condition.

She said: “The dog growled at her and she darted back on her seat on the sofa, the dog then attacked her and bit her face. She ran to the kitchen and the dog attacked her again and caught her on the side.”

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The court heard how the woman suffered a significant injury to her face which required stitches in hospital and now has permanent scarring.

In a victim impact statement, she said: “I feel like I don’t trust dogs, my daughter recently got a dog and she tells me she has it around the children.

“I have told her to get rid of it because I can’t trust dogs no more.”

The court heard how Armstrong had signed a dog behaviour contract six-months before the attack on the woman after it escaped his home and injured the young girl.

A dog behaviour expert assessed that the dog still showed aggressive to other dogs and strangers after seven months in his care. He confirmed that it was his belief that the dog should be destroyed for public safety.

Armstrong, of Cornwall Street, Hartlepool, had pleaded guilty to being in charge of a French Mastiff that was dangerously out of control. He also pleaded guilty to three breaches of bail conditions for failing to appear at earlier court hearings.

John Nixon, in mitigation, told the judge that his client had followed the rules of the contract up until the dog attacked the woman in his home.

He said “The dog had never bit anyone in his home before. It took him by surprise.”

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Recorder Thomas Moran told the 52-year-old that his failure to control his dog in November last year meant that an immediate custodial sentence was inevitable after he made a ‘lying account’ of what happened.

“You knew the dog was temperamental around strangers,” he said.

“The dog, sadly, is clearly beyond redemption and this is plainly demonstrated by its history and from the statement of the experienced dog handler, who has had custody of the dog for seven months, and despite his expertise the dog remains aggressive, unpredictable and impossible to socialise.”

The judge sentenced Armstrong to 20 months in prison while banning him from owning a pet for ten years and ordered that the dog be put down.

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