Police officer accused of failing to act on tip-off about banned dog that went on to kill six-month old baby
Concerns about the mutt's aggression were documented nine months before the fatal attack on Molly-Mae Wotherspoon
A POLICE officer failed to act on a tip about a banned dog which went on to kill a six-month-old baby, a report said.
The mother and grandmother of six-week old Molly-Mae Wotherspoon - 23-year-old Claire Riley and Susan Aucott, 56 - were both jailed for two years over the death at Northampton Crown Court on Thursday.
Molly-Mae Wotherspoon died from severe blood loss after being savaged by an American pitbull named Bruiser at the family home in Daventry in October 2014.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) said an officer now has a case to answer for misconduct after looking into how Northamptonshire Police handled intelligence about the dog.
Concerns about Bruiser's aggression were documented nine months before the fatal attack when Molly-Mae's mother Claire Riley took the pet to see a vet.
The vet passed on details about the dog to RSPCA inspector Michelle McNab.
She was told that Bruiser was "extremely aggressive" and "she had concerns for the children in the same house".
Riley believed Bruiser was a Staffordshire bull terrier/mastiff cross breed, but the vet thought the animal was an American pitbull, and therefore banned under Dangerous Dogs legislation.
The information about the dog's aggression was passed on to Pc Claire Paul and was logged as "low priority" intelligence.
The details about Bruiser were passed on to another officer, but the report says the email may have been accidentally deleted - and that Pc Paul did not follow up this request.
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The report said: "Pc Paul's inability to follow up and act upon this intelligence demonstrates that on the balance of probabilities she failed to take appropriate action to ensure an incident log was raised and that further inquiries were made in connection with this.
";This investigation recommends that there is a case to answer for Pc Paul for misconduct."
Another officer who was alleged to have failed to act on intelligence was found to have no case to answer for misconduct, the IPCC said.
Passing sentence at Northampton Crown Court, Mrs Justice Carr said: "This was a tragic and totally avoidable incident. Bruiser was a large, strong and aggressive dog weighing some 33 kilograms.
"He should never have been living cooped up in a small house with a new baby, and the two of them should never have been left alone by Claire Riley in charge of someone such as Susan Aucott.
"The cage for Bruiser was too small and too flimsy for him. Indeed, he escaped it without apparent difficulty in order to attack Molly-Mae.
"There can be little doubt that Bruiser was a vicious and dangerous dog. He has been described by various professional vets as incredibly aggressive. A vet of 15 years' experience described him as one of the most aggressive dogs that she had ever encountered."