CONVICTED (2024) | Liam Rainey, born 30 November 1997, originally from Liverpool L4 but with a most recent known address of Darlington Street East, Ince, Wigan WN1 3AT – set his XL bully on a middle-aged woman. Rainey, a career criminal with 24 previous convictions including for robbery and violence, took his dog’s muzzle off before the animal jumped on the 55-year-old woman and bit her to the arm and chest. After regaining control of the dog, known as ‘Scar’ Rainey then said “good dog, get her”, before he attacked her for a second time. The attack, which took place in Windermere Road, Ince on 11 June 2023, occurred after the victim had tried to intervene in a row between Rainey and his girlfriend, Amy Naylor. Rainey was arrested at his home the following morning. He told police that Scar was ‘calm and friendly’, and that he ‘would never attack anybody’. Rainey pleaded guilty to section 20 wounding and being in charge of a dog which was dangerously out of control and caused injury. Defending, Kevin Liston said that Scar had not attacked anyone else previously. “This was a terrifying ordeal,” Judge Sarah Johnston told Rainey, as she sentenced him to three years in prison. “You deliberately used your dog as a weapon, in what became a sustained attack on a defenceless woman who was wounded by your animal on your instruction.” “I regard the dog as one of your victims as well,” the judge told him. Rainey relinquished ownership of Scar and, while it was reported that the judge was to rule on the dog’s fate, no update is available. Sentencing | three years in jail. Banned from owning a dog for five years (expires January 2029). ITV News Manchester Evening News