R v Jennifer Clare Hopkins

The appellant pleaded guilty to being the owner of a person in charge of a dog which caused injury whilst dangerously out of control, contrary to section 3(1) and (4) of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 on 4 July 2025 in the Crown Court at Swansea at the plea and trial preparation hearing.

A pre-sentence report was ordered and the case adjourned for sentence to the 4 September 2025, when she was sentenced by His Honour Judge Rees to 9 months' imprisonment suspended for 12 months and ordered to undertake 150 hours' unpaid work, to pay the statutory surcharge of £187, and a compensation order was imposed for £10,000, payable within 12 months.

With the leave of the single judge, the appellant appeals against sentence on the single ground that the judge erred in finding that the offence fell squarely within Culpability level B under the Sentencing Council guidelines rather than Category C, with the consequence that it was manifestly excessive to impose a term of imprisonment given the extensive mitigation available to the appellant.

The facts are these. On 24 October 2023 at around 1.45 pm the victim, Sian Murrows, was driving down a country road towards Dyferwyn, near Whitland, as a Yodel delivery driver. She got to the appellant's address, which she had not previously been to. She took a parcel addressed to the appellant out of her van and made her way down the side of the appellant's property. The gate had a piece of string holding it closed. The victim placed the parcel on the floor in order to open the gate. After opening the gate she then picked up the parcel and walked towards the side of the house. There was a dog flap on the side door, but she did not see any signs warning anyone of dogs being present at the house. The victim knocked on the door and three large waist-height Carpathian Mountain dogs rushed out at her and all three bit her. The first bit the victim's left hand from the wrist down to the base of her fingers. The bite left the victim with skin loss and exposed her extensor tendons. The second dog bit the victim on her right hip just above her belt. This caused bruising and a deep puncture wound to her right buttock. The third bit the victim on her left belt line and caused multiple puncture wounds to her left buttock. All of the dogs were jumping and barking. The victim had great presence of mind and somehow managed to remove her hand from the first dog's mouth and ran back up the path and got to the other side of the gate, away from the dogs, who continued to bark and tried to come towards her.

When she got back to her van, the victim realised that she could see her bone and tendons and that she was losing lots of blood. She pressed the van's horn and rang the mobile telephone number that had been given to her on the Yodel app, and the appellant came out. The victim explained to her that she had been attacked. The appellant told her that people knew not to come and that there were signs, which the victim said she did not know because she had never been there before and she had not seen the signs. After the victim told the appellant that she needed to go to hospital, the appellant took her there.

At the hospital the victim was admitted to the plastic surgery ward, where she received antibiotics and underwent surgery. Two tendons to her index finger had been exposed, and the extensor indicis had become dried out and macerated and were at high risk of post-operative infection. The surgeons therefore decided it was necessary to debride the tendon, leaving the victim with only one tendon to the index finger, which allows it to extend. She remained an in-patient until her discharge two days later.

The victim was seen by medical staff approximately monthly thereafter to ensure that her wounds were healing following the initial surgery. She then had a further operation on 22 December 2023 for a lump that had developed.

The victim's wounds had healed by 6 February 2024, but she was left with scarring and restricted movement. Grip and scar tightening and tendon scarring was restricting full wrist extension.

In her victim personal statement, written ten months later, the victim had not fully recovered either physically or psychologically. As she had been unable to drive for nine months after the dog attack she had lost her part-time delivery job with Yodel, which she needed to supplement her income from her farm. Prior to the incident she had done all the work on her farm herself, but after the incident she was completely unable to do any farm work for a number of months. She had to employ four part-time staff and contractors, turning her self-sustained and self-reliant farming life of 25 years into what she described as a nightmare. Without the income to pay the staff, she was forced to sell much of her stock and was also unable to work part time on various neighbour's farms that she had previously done, causing further loss of income and guilt at letting down the other farmers. Being unable to drive for nine months and living in a very rural area left her reliant on family and friends for all her travel needs including hospital appointments. The physical recovery was slow, painful and incomplete, as in spite of extensive and painful physiotherapy, she has insufficient strength and manual dexterity to pick up small items. She has been left with permanent unsightly and visible scarring on her hand.

The appellant was interviewed on 21 December 2023 but not charged until 22 April 2025. In interview the appellant said she had been running an animal sanctuary in which she takes in dogs for free. She has 29 dogs. She lives on a large farm with plenty of areas for the dogs to be let off the lead safely. The appellant said she did have control of the dogs. She said that they were trained. She said there were warning signs in place and she believed that she had put adequate measures in place, including a box for deliveries to be made. She said that no other delivery driver had attempted to do what the victim had done.

The appellant was 55 years old at the date of sentence and had had an unblemished career as a civil servant with the Scottish government. She has no previous convictions or any previous involvement with the police. She had a number of excellent character testimonials attesting to her love of animals, her generosity and selflessness in animal welfare, and the out-of-character nature of the offence.

In his sentencing remarks the judge considered that the offending was serious. Although he acknowledged the undoubted great kindness that the appellant shows to animal rescue dogs, there is inadequate protection for people visiting her property such as delivery drivers. The judge was able to see for himself the extent of the victim's injuries and scarring. He noted it was a substantial and a severe injury, disfiguring the victim’s left hand and causing long-term consequences to the tendons of her index fingers, which were exposed, leaving a lack of coordination. He also identified how very frightening it would have been to have been attacked and bitten by three large mountain dogs. He found that the appellant had not provided adequate protection for people visiting her property and for delivery drivers. He explained why he rejected the appellant's counsel's submission that the offending fell within Culpability C rather than B. There was medium culpability because there was a lack of safety or control measures taken in situations where an incident could reasonably have been foreseeable. It was thus all foreseeable from the appellant's point of view.

The judge gave the appellant credit for the fact that this was a solitary incident, also for the fact that she had since made amends by securing the curtilage to her large property by permanent fencing. He also gave the appellant credit for substantial mitigation: her blameless life hitherto and her employment record, her kindness and generosity to animals in need, and for setting up her animal sanctuary at her own cost and expense. There was a low risk of reoffending identified in the pre-sentence report. He also took account of the inexplicable delay of 2 years whilst the appellant had the matter hanging over her.

Noting that the starting point under the guidelines for a Category 1B offence was 18 months with a range of 6 months to 2½ years, he concluded that after trial the sentence would have been 12 months, which he reduced to 9 months to reflect her guilty plea at the plea and trial preparation hearing. He had suspended the sentence for a period of 12 months and made the ancillary orders of the compensation order and the 150 hours' unpaid work. There is no criticism of the percentage discount applied for the early guilty plea nor the ancillary orders; the challenge is to the decision by the judge that the offending passed the custody threshold.

In his articulate and well-structured oral and written submissions, Mr Singh emphasised the temporary fencing already in place in the rural location where the dog attack took place and that in spite of many earlier deliveries there had been no earlier incidents in the previous six months. Other delivery drivers who had been before knew to place deliveries in a box outside the fence although there was no sign telling them to do so. This, Mr Singh submitted, was evidence of safety measures already in place and lack of foreseeability of such an incident, consistent with a Category C offence.

We accept that none of the other Category B factors arose in this case: for example, there was absolutely no question whatsoever of ill-treatment of an animal by the appellant, nor could it be said that there was a failure to intervene when the appellant went to the victim's aid when she telephoned from her car, but there is an issue about the effectiveness of the safety measures in place.

The appellant had taken in stray or rescue Carpathian Mountain dogs from Romania which are a large breed of livestock guarding dogs. It was entirely foreseeable that they would attack a visitor to the house trying to deliver a package. There was insufficient signage to warn of dangerous dogs on the premises and no indication that deliveries should be left outside the perimeter fence. The judge was correct to identify that the safety or control measures, such as they were, were quite insufficient to prevent an incident such as this and one which could have reasonably been foreseen by the appellant. The victim was in fact very familiar with handling livestock and well used to dogs and it was an unprovoked attack from her mere presence trying to deliver a package. But the fact of there being a single category B factor present does not mean the culpability moves down to place the offending in category C.

The judge made findings of fact on the evidence and was entitled to conclude that the case fell in Category 1B under the guidelines because of the inadequate safety measures. The small ground-level "no entry" sign was wholly insufficient, as was the notice saying, "Beware of the dog" (in the singular). The safety measures must be directed to the risk that existed — in this case, people visiting the property. Measures adopted did not address that risk and the judge was entitled to find that.

The judge was further entitled to conclude that the aggravating factors and mitigating factors balanced each other out so that the starting point was also the finishing point, subject to the reduction for the guilty plea. The judge gave what credit he could to the appellant's extensive mitigation, given the seriousness of the offence and aggravating features, such as that the victim was performing a public service as a Yodel delivery driver. He then rightly assessed that he could suspend the sentence under the guidelines for the Imposition of community order and suspended sentences. It cannot therefore fairly be said that the sentence was manifestly excessive, and the appeal is dismissed.