Gzira man prohibited from keeping any dogs at home after yet another attack

Gzira resident David Farrugia, 54 has been arraigned on a number of charges relating to a dog attack on a woman near Manoel Island, yesterday afternoon.

Farrugia pleaded guilty and was sentenced to six months in jail, suspended for four years. The court also prohibited the man from keeping any dogs at home.

Farrugia was accused of grievously injuring a woman, insulting her - and her partner - near Manoel Island, failing to keep his dogs under control and causing danger.

Farrugia also faced a number of charges relating to the keeping of dangerous dogs, failing to muzzle them and keep them on a leash and failing to keep his dogs under control.

The prosecution told Magistrate Francesco Depasquale that the residents were terrified of the dogs, which are of the Dogo Argentino breed.

According to reports, this is not the first time that the dogs have lashed out at pedestrians, with similar incidents reported over the past months with at least five people being attacked on the street where Farrugia lives. A court case had been scheduled for April 3.

The court was told that alternative housing for the dogs had been found, and a search was underway to find a home for the last dog.

Sunday’s incident happened at around 2.30pm, and the victim was a foreign woman. She sustained grievous injuries and is recovering in hospital.

The police said that the man resisted arrest, allegedly even threatening to set the dogs on them.

According to media reports, a vet had found the dogs to have been trained to attack on command and that the dog involved in yesterday’s incident at Manoel Island was understood to be the offspring another dog which attacked a 70­year-old woman in Triq Sir Charles Cameron, last August.

As a result of that case, the dog was euthanised at the request of the owner.

Defence lawyer Gianluca Caruana Curran said that Farrugia would be pleading guilty.

The court sentenced the man to six months imprisonment suspended for four years and ordered that all dogs in his possession are to be immediately seized by animal welfare authorities to be rehomed.

The accused was further prohibited from keeping any type of dog in his residence.

"I don't want to keep any dogs anymore," the man told the court.