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UK government to hold 'crisis talks' over huge rise in fatal dog attacks since lockdown

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animals, sometimes imported, left unsocialised in lockdown. The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has now called for round-table talks to discuss potential changes to the Dangerous Dogs Act, the Daily Mirror reports.It said: “We have set up a Responsible Dog Ownership project with the police, local authority representatives and animal welfare stakeholders to look at dog control issues.” It comes as police, the courts and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) have been criticised for not fully enforcing the law, with the Royal Mail and Communication Workers’ Union (CWU) being forced to take out private prosecutions against owners.The RSPCA also says the current law is not working, while post and delivery staff say they have been left with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after being savaged while at work.The CWU says dog attacks injure 3,000 postal, collection and delivery workers a year.

Overall, dog bite injuries have more than doubled in the last 15 years with more than 10,000 people a year requiring hospital treatment.The union's Dave Joyce said: “This is a national crisis.

We have 90,000 members and every day I wake up thinking ‘is this the day I am going to get that call that one has been killed?’ We’ve come close.”Mr Joyce added that a major problem was a lack of enforcement by police, the courts and CPS.

The CWU wants “sentences that fit the crime”.To stay up to date with all the latest news, make sure you sign up to one of our newsletters here.He said: “Courts can order prison sentences of up to five years for aggravated dog attacks leading to serious injuries.

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