Workplace Report November 2015

Health & safety news

Private prosecutions over dangerous dogs


Communication workers’ union CWU says that “landmark” convictions of the owners of dangerous dogs in the first two private prosecutions brought by Royal Mail following attacks on postmen are thanks to its successful Bite-Back campaign.


The first owner was ordered to pay £300 compensation to the postman victim after he was attacked and injured by their Alsatian dog. The second was placed on a seven-week curfew order between 9pm and 6am, ordered to pay costs and charges totalling £740 and compensation of £750 to the postman victim, and was also banned from keeping dogs for 18 months. 


Bite-Back helped bring about new and tougher dog control laws and sentences, and an agreement whereby Royal Mail prosecutes wherever possible when the police and Crown Prosecution Service have failed to do so.


www.cwu.org/news/archive/union-s-bite-back-campaign-pays-off.html