A dog owner has been fined almost $5,000 after a pitbull in her care savaged a senior.

Johnae Furbert, 41, pleaded guilty to five charges in relation to the incident when she appeared in Magistrates’ Court yesterday.

The attack took place on January 13 this year when the victim, a 65-year-old woman, was walking to her job on Summit View Drive in Hamilton Parish.

Two pitbulls came rushing out onto the street and one of them lunged at the victim, dragging her to the ground before repeatedly biting her and ripping her clothes.

The violence ended only when a passer-by was able to scare the dog off. The victim was taken to hospital, where she received treatment for seven bite wounds on her body. Both dogs were seized by dog wardens.

Alan Richards, for the Crown, said that although the victim’s wounds had healed, she was still suffering emotional trauma. In a witness impact statement read out in court, she said that she “tensed up” whenever she heard the sound of a dog barking.

She also became nervous whenever she had to walk past the scene of the attack and could no longer visit her son and grandchildren — because he owned a dog.

Mr Richards called for both animals to be destroyed and recommended that Furbert be banned from owning dogs for five years.

But defence attorney Charles Richardson pointed out that Furbert did not own the dog that carried out the attack, but had been looking after it for a friend who had to go overseas.

He said that her own dog, a grey pitbull, had always been well behaved and had never strayed from its yard onto the street, even though the property was not fenced off.

“There’s no history of her dog leaving the yard and bothering neighbours,” he said. “She agreed to take the other dog in for a friend while she was away. Had she known that that dog had a propensity to act as dumb as it did, she would not have kept it.”

Addressing the court, Furbert apologised to the victim of the attack but pleaded that she be able to keep her pet. “I love dogs — they’re good dogs, she said.

Acting magistrate Kenlyn Swan fined Furbert $750 each for four counts of being in possession of dogs that were not licensed and that did not come from a legal source.

She was fined a further $500 for being the keeper of a dog that caused injury. She was also ordered to pay $1,449.35 in compensation to her victim.

But the magistrate did not agree with the prosecution that Furbert’s dog should be destroyed and that she should be banned from owning dogs.

She said that Furbert could apply to get her dog back once wardens were satisfied that her property was properly secure.

But Ms Swan did say that the second dog would be destroyed unless its owner made representations to the courts in the next 14 days.

Under present legislation, nine breeds of dog are banned from the island, while a further 19 are on the restricted list. Restricted dogs may be bred only after receipt of a breeder’s permit.

Restrictions on American pitbull terriers were eased in 2018, with the breed removed from the prohibited list.

Last year police revealed that there had been 384 reports of incidents of dogs attacking or behaving aggressively in the previous five years, with 218 of those incidents involving pitbulls.