When the law has gone to the dogs

BRIGITTE Bardot, the one time sex kitten is welcome to take away Dempsey the pit bull terrier as far as I am concerned.

After all who in Hong Kong would pay $720,000 to keep a dog? That is what the British taxpayer has paid out ever since 1992 when the owner of the beast Dianne Fanneran took it for a walk without a muzzle and found the dog arrested.

Britain had gone through a period of hysteria against pit bulls and other seemingly violent dogs following a series of harrowing attacks on children. In one of its many less balanced moments the Government submitted to media pressure and rushed through almost overnight legislation aimed at keeping these vicious beasts off the streets.

The problem was that the ridiculously hurried legislation was in effect a reversal of normal UK law, an owner had to prove his or her dog was not a pit bull or other dangerous type if it was to avoid being put down.

Prove it was not a type of dog? What could that mean in a world where there are more cross breeds than pedigrees and where your friendly pooch might look pretty similar to next door's slavering killer? Police were confused, owners hired lawyers and at one stage more than 1,000 dogs were in police kennels up and down the country each kept at the taxpayers expense at around $100 a day.

Then a court ruled that the new act should apply only to dogs with 'a substantial number of the characteristics' of the pit bull terrier. It was meant to ease the problem but made it worse.