A 62-year-old man whose dog launched a “horrific” attack on an 11-year-old girl and two men who helped her has walked free from court.
Farhat Ajaz, whose dog is believed to have been an XL bully, was handed a two-year suspended prison sentence after he also admitted threatening to kill a former partner.
Ajaz, of Bordesley Close, Birmingham, pleaded guilty at previous hearings to harassment causing fear of violence and three counts of being the owner or in charge of a dog dangerously out of control, causing injury.
CCTV from a shop that was played in court showed the dog, named Tyson, snapping its collar and attacking the 11-year-old in Bordesley Green, Birmingham, on 9 September last year.
The victim, who cannot be named because of her age, was left with scarring on her arm and shoulder.
Further footage filmed by bus passengers showed subsequent attacks on Numaan Ahmed and Yousef Ahmadzai, who helped the girl but were injured on a nearby petrol station forecourt, with one of them fearing he would die.
Birmingham Crown Court heard Ajaz was subject to a life-long licence at the time of the offences, having been jailed in 1979 and serving 25 years before his release in 2004. No details about this offence were given to the court.
‘Were you a younger man, you would be going to prison’
Passing sentence on Ajaz, Judge Heidi Kubik KC said the harassment, relating to a series of incidents in February and March 2022, involved “vile, threatening and abusive” behaviour which on its own merited a custodial sentence.
The judge told Ajaz: “You were out and about on the street with the dog, even at that stage not in the best of health and frankly not in a capable state of restraining the dog, who was not muzzled at the time.
“It set about attacking three separate people including an 11-year-old girl. It was a horrific attack. She was undoubtedly and rightly terrified.”
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Ajaz regarded himself as a “dead man walking” due to a variety of health problems including lung disease and cardiac problems, the judge was told, having suffered a heart attack in the immediate aftermath of the dog attack.
The judge told him: “I make it perfectly plain that were you a younger man in good health, you would be going immediately to prison today.
“Bearing in mind your guilty pleas and the health conditions that you now suffer, I take the view that it would not be in the interests of justice to send you to immediate custody today.”
Ajaz, whose sentence was suspended for two years, left court on crutches and told reporters he was sorry about what happened.
He was also banned from owning a dog for the rest of his life and made the subject of a restraining order.
