§ Mr. SteenTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many local authorities have initiated prosecutions under the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991; how many have resulted in convictions; and how many dogs responsible for attacks were not ordered to be destroyed. [125648]
§ Ms Blears[holding answer 14 July 2003]: It is not possible, in the statistics collected centrally, to identify those prosecutions initiated by local authorities.
The available information, relating to all prosecutions and convictions under the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 in England and Wales between 1992 and 2001 is given in the table.
Figures for 2002 will be available in the autumn.
Details of cases where dogs responsible for attacks are not destroyed are not collected centrally.
Defendants1 proceeded against at magistrates' courts and convicted at all courts for offences under the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991, England and Wales 1992–2001 Year Proceeded against Found guilty 1992 1,222 575 1993 984 434 1994 617 260 1995 554 220 1996 449 159 1997 504 241 1998 764 406 1999 802 442 20002 823 446 2001 886 522 1 These data are on the principal offence basis. 2 Staffordshire Police were only able to submit sample data for persons proceeded against and convicted in the magistrates' court for the year 2000. Although sufficient to estimate higher orders of data these data are not robust at a detailed level and have been excluded from this table