A dog owner has been jailed for three years after her American bulldog cross killed a nine-year-old boy in a caravan.
Sadie Totterdell, 29, admitted being the owner of the 45kg dog, named Winston, when it was dangerously out of control and attacked Frankie Macritchie.
Truro Crown Court heard Frankie had been left alone in a caravan with Winston, who had previously bitten another child, at the Tencreek Holiday Park in Looe, Cornwall, on April 13 last year.
Frankie’s mother Tawney Willis and Totterdell, along with other friends, were drinking and listening to music in a separate caravan at the time of the attack.
Judge Simon Carr jailed Totterdell for three years and described leaving Frankie alone with the “extremely powerful” dog as “the height of folly”.
The court heard Frankie died from blood loss after sustaining 54 injuries, with the most serious to his head and neck, during the attack in the early hours.
After the incident, Winston was seized by police and destroyed.
Frankie’s mother Tawney Willis, 31, who admitted a charge of child neglect, was jailed for two years.
The court heard Willis had been checking on Frankie, who was in a separate caravan, and discovered him dead and Winston covered in blood at about 4.30am.
Judge Carr told her: “You placed the dog and the nine-year-old child in the confined environment of a caravan and returned to the party in the caravan nearby.
“The scene you found I know will haunt you for the rest of your life and you have developed PTSD as a result of what you saw and experienced.”
The judge described Willis’ actions of leaving Frankie with the dog as “grossly negligent”.
In a statement read outside court, Frankie MacRitchie’s family described him as a “special young boy” who had a heart condition and should not have been left alone.
“As Frankie’s family, nothing will ever be enough, no sentence will ever be long enough,” his aunt Danielle MacRitchie said.
“Not today, not tomorrow, not ever will we as a family forgive them for leaving our boy in a caravan with a dog he hardly knew.
“Frankie was left alone to die in the most horrific way, beyond anyone’s imagination.”
