R v Warren: Paws for thought when it comes to dangerous dogs’ sentencing.

On 31st March at Chelmsford Crown Court, Ashley Warren was handed a sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment for owning a dog which caused injury resulting in death, while dangerously out of control. This was the first prosecution under the amended Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 involving a person killed by an XL bully dog, following an incident on 3 February 2024 in which Mr Warren’s dog Bear, and his ex-partner’s dog Beauty, attacked Mr Warren’s mother-in-law, Esther Martin, at his home. She later died of her injuries.

Mr Warren, an amateur rapper, was away from home shooting a music video at the time. He had originally pleaded not guilty to owning or being in charge of a dog dangerously out of control. After 14 hours and 28 minutes of deliberation in February 2026, a jury found him guilty on this count in relation to his dog Bear. He was acquitted on a second count relating to Beauty.

At sentence, Mr Warren also pleaded guilty to two counts of possession of a prohibited dog without an exemption certificate. The Crown offered no evidence on two further charges of neglect in relation to both dogs.

Mr Warren was also sentenced to three months’ imprisonment, consecutive to his ten-year sentence, for a knife found on his person at the time of his arrest.

The Rules and Guidelines

New legislation governing ownership of XL bully dogs has been introduced in recent years after the Government added them to the list of prohibited dogs under the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991.

Since 31 December 2023, it has been illegal to sell, give away, abandon or breed from an XL bully. This includes rehoming them with an animal charity or a shelter.

Since 1 February 2024, it has been a criminal offence to own an XL bully without an exemption certificate under s.1(3) of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991.

This incident took place on 3rd February 2024 – just two days after the latter provision came into force, although the changes had been widely publicised since late 2023.

XL Bully dogs are a crossbreed so there are no specified Kennel Club breed requirements to match against. The Government therefore created its own guidance which is mostly based on physical characteristics. This guidance describes the dogs as "large" with a "muscular body and blocky head, suggesting great strength and power for its size". The most important characteristic is height – 20 inches at the withers (the tallest point on a dog’s body, excluding their head and shoulders) for an adult male. This has however led to some confusion when it comes to some mixed-breed dogs which fit some of the physical characteristics of an XL bully but not all.

The guidance is publicly available so owners can themselves check if their dog meets the standards, and can be used by the police as a first port of call in identifying a potential XL Bully.

Once a dog has been seized under that suspicion, an expert is then required to formally assess whether the dog has sufficient characteristics to be considered an XL Bully, or another prohibited breed.

But if categorisation is contested, expert evidence may be required on both sides as the owner would have to prove the dog is not a prohibited breed. Animal behaviour experts can also be used to assess the risks posed, environmental factors, or analysing gravity of bites.

The Sentence

Mr Justice Johnson’s sentencing remarks made it clear that an important factor in determining a defendant’s culpability at sentence will be their knowledge of the risk of aggressive behaviour by the dog, including what care has been taken of the dog prior to the incident. This is even more so in cases where there has been a death, where the level of harm is inevitably of the utmost seriousness.

Mr Justice Johnson found that Mr Warren had kept the dogs in a confined space and not walked them for 4 weeks prior to the incident. This had greatly increased the risk of aggression and so it was reasonably foreseeable that harm would be caused. This was despite the fact that there had not been any previous similar incidents and the dogs had been well-behaved on other occasions.

Mr Justice Johnson also noted Mr Warren’s failure to take any steps to comply with the legislation that came into force from 1 February 2024, and Mr Warren’s knowledge that his mother-in-law could not control the dogs.

Both dogs and their eight puppies were destroyed after the incident.

Mr Justice Johnson’s full sentencing remarks can be found here.

Commentary

One particular aggravating factor present in this case was allowing an inexperienced or insufficiently trained person to be in charge of the dog. This puts responsibility squarely at the door of the owner, meaning that they can still be liable even if – as here – they were not involved in the incident itself.

While an owner charged under s.3(1) can rely on the statutory defence under s.3(2) - that they had put a fit and proper person in charge of the dog – if this defence fails, the choice of caretaker could come back to bite them (quite literally) at sentence.

This demonstrates the wide-reaching nature of the legislation, and the potential risks involved in caring for these dogs, with a maximum sentence of 14 years set out by the Sentencing Guidelines for cases involving a death, and a maximum of 5 years if injury only is caused.

Conclusion

This change in legislation may have initially seemed like a piece of PR by the Government following some very public incidents involving XL bullies in 2020-22 and rising public concerns. Moreover, the effectiveness of simply banning dog breeds in terms of avoiding dog attacks or injuries has also been questioned. A timely Panorama investigation has also shown the hidden costs of specialist kennels required to keep any dogs seized by the police, totalling £25 million in the first year of the ban

But yesterday’s sentencing hearing demonstrates that when these matters come before the Courts, they will be treated very seriously indeed.