Dog mauls 11 month old girl to death

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An 11-month-old baby was mauled to death by a nine stone dog while her mother slept downstairs, unaware that the animal had escaped from a room where it had been blocked in.

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The couple woke up at about 11pm and went upstairs where Miss King was initially baffled by the appearance of the dog in the bedroom.
She said: 'I thought maybe the dog had been chewing a toy on the bed.
'I laid her (Ava) on the bed and started cuddling her. I was holding her close and she was making a grunting noise.
'I was giving her kisses and said "you need to wake up now, come on."'
Only when she turned the light on did Miss King realise how badly injured her daughter was. She rang paramedics who tried to revive the child before they took her to the ambulance and to hospital. She died shortly afterwards at 11.53pm.

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Dr Philip Lumb, a forensic pathologist, said Ava died from the multiple injuries she suffered. This included a large wound on her neck with bruises and grazes covering her head, neck, chest and arms.
The child also had a severely damaged rib cage and punctured lung.
Miss King had been seeing Mr Wright for three to four months but they had only been together officially for ten days when the incident happened.
They had met in September 2013 when Mr Wright was out walking his dog, known by neighbours as Killer. She said the dog had never bitten anyone before and she had never heard him bark, but instead he had normally greeted her by 'slathering kisses.'
Miss King said she wished she could take her daughter's place and had wanted to die herself
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Miss King said she wished she could take her daughter's place and had wanted to die herself
Miss King said her former boyfriend had described the dog as an American Bulldog and told her he had spent £4,000 prior to the attack fixing his broken leg. The nine stone animal had injured himself while fighting with Mr Wright’s other dog, a Japanese Akita called Wolfgang some months before.

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