After being mauled by mistake by a police dog, one Chessington pensioner is seeking a £10,000 personal injury compensation award.
Greater London native Brian Kiddell, aged seventy one, was tending his allotment off Clayton Road on Bramham Gardens when the German Shepherd bit him. The police dog had been involved in pursuit of a suspect at the time when it ran up to Mr Kiddell and bit him deeply on the angle.
Describing the incident in his personal injury claim as a terribly frightening moment, Mr. Kiddell recounted how the overhead police helicopter kept his shouts for help from being heard.
The Metropolitan Police Force offered two different compensation award settlements to Mr Kiddell after he filed for injury claims compensation. The initial offer of £2,100 in damages was soon overshadowed by the £4,200 the police offered Mr Kiddell next. However the seventy one year old stated that both awards were not adequate for the amount of shock, pain, and suffering he had to undergo.
The bite Mr Kiddell received is not an isolated incident by any means; a total of £770,000 has been disbursed to the victims of police dog bites across the country over the past three years alone.
The Metropolitan Police accounted for £95,000 of that total over that three year period. However the Greater Manchester Police had nearly double that figure after paying out £180,000 in damages for dog bite injuries.
Many industry experts believe that the current trend of dog bite injuries may only continue and worsen unless police dog training methods across the UK are evaluated for any shortcomings. The Metropolitan Police Service chose not to take the opportunity to comment on the legal proceedings brought against them by Mr Kiddell.