Following the death of nine-year-old boy, Frankie MacRitchie, who was mauled to death by a bulldog, his mother, 31-year-old woman, Tawney Williams, has been jailed for two years.
A seven-year-old ‘bulldog-type breed’ called Winston killed Frank while on holiday at Tencreek Holiday Park.
According to mirror.co.uk, Frankie was left alone by his mother and the dog owner while they went partying overnight in Looe, Cornwall, UK.
The dog during the night turned on him biting him 54 times, leaving a string of horrendous injuries.
The bite from the dog caused the boy to bleed to death.
The dog’s owner Sarah Totterdell, 29, and the mother were both charged to Truro Crown Court, where Sarah pleaded guilty to being the person in charge of a dog dangerously out of control causing injury resulting to death. She was jailed for three years.
Frankie’s mother was also jailed for two years after admitting to neglecting her son.
The judge Lindford told Tawney, “The devastation of Frankie’s death is met very firmly by you I accept your remorse is genuine and heartfelt.
“But on that night in question, as you have accepted from the begging, you had been out drinking with a large group and returned probably about midnight and continued drinking, and you accepted yourself taking cocaine in one of the caravans.
“You left Frankie with the dog, Winston. This was a strong and powerful dog. It was a dog that Frankie knew but was not a family dog.
“You knew Frankie was awake, you placed the dog and a nine-year-old child in the confined environment of a caravan.
“The scene you found in the morning I know will haunt you for the rest of your life, and that you have developed PTSD as a result of what you saw and experienced.
“It can only be classed as grossly negligent.
In a statement read outside court, Frankie’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.”
Frankie’s dad Billy MacRitchie, who wasn’t on the holiday, shared a heartbreaking tribute to his son in which he said his ‘world has shattered into a million pieces’ after his death.
