Page 2966 - Week 09 - Thursday, 18 September 2014
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the keeper of a dog that attacks or harasses a person or animal, in a new section 49A(2) which was previously section 50(2). The third is an offence for the keeper of a dangerous dog that attacks or harasses a person or animal, in section 50A(1). The new offences introduced by this bill are a new offence for the carer of a dog that attacks, causing serious injury, in section 50(1); a new offence for the keeper of a dog that attacks, causing serious injury, in section 50(2); and a new offence for the keeper of a dangerous dog that attacks, causing serious injury, in section 50A(2).
The new offences for a keeper or carer allowing a dog to attack, causing serious injury, in new section 50(1) and (2), require recklessness or intent on the part of the accused in order to prove the elements of the offence. On conviction, the maximum penalty that a court can impose for these offences is 100 penalty units, imprisonment for one year, or both.
Serious injury is defined in section 50(6) as injury endangering a person or animal’s life or as a significant or longstanding injury. Members may recognise this definition of serious injury as very similar to the definition of serious harm found in the dictionary of the criminal code, adapted to account for the fact that animals as well as human beings may be injured by attacking dogs.
Section 50(3) and (4) provide certain defences for a person accused of allowing a dog to attack, causing serious injury. These defences are the dog was provoked into attacking, the dog was coming to the aid of another person or animal that it could be expected to protect, the victim was trespassing on the premises on which the dog resides or someone else was caring for the dog at the time of the attack. I note that this last defence is only available to the keeper of a dog, for example, where the keeper leaves their dog with a carer because the keeper is travelling.
The bill also contains a new offence for the keeper of a dangerous dog that attacks a person or another animal, causing serious injury. Where a dog has previously been declared dangerous, its keeper is under a particular responsibility to ensure that their dog does not cause any injury to people or other animals. People who keep dangerous dogs do so under a licence issued under section 25 of the Domestic Animals Act. Dangerous dog licenses are issued with strict conditions to ensure that the subject dogs do not pose a further danger to the community.
For a dangerous dog to be given the opportunity to attack a person or animal and cause them serious injury, it must mean that the dog’s keeper has breached the conditions of their dangerous dog licence. This extra responsibility on the keepers of dangerous dogs is reflected in the strong penalty that the bill provides for the new offence of allowing a dangerous dog to attack, causing serious injury. The new offence has a maximum court-imposed penalty of 500 penalty units, imprisonment for five years, or both.
New section 50A(2)(a) provides defences that a person may access if they are accused of allowing their dangerous dog to attack, causing serious injury. These defences reflect the defences available for the new offences in section 50(1) and (2). The available defences are the victim provoked the attacking dog, the person or animal attacked or harassed, because the dog came to the aid of a person or animal the dog
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