Criminal charges cannot be laid against the owner of the dogs which mauled four-year-old Ezekiel Renne-Cambridge last week, says senior attorney Frank Seepersad.Commenting on reports of police investigations into the dog attack, Seepersad, president of the Southern Assembly of Lawyers, says only civil proceedings can be instituted. Police have concluded their investigations and are expected to send the file to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Roger Gaspard for him to determine if charges could be laid. Renne-Cambridge was mauled by two dogs while walking with his grandmother near his Block Five, Palmiste, home. The dogs, belonging to resident Vidya Emrith, had escaped from her premises.
"I am of the view that no criminal charges can be laid, in the absence of the proclamation of the Dangerous Dog Act (of 2000)," said Seepersad in a telephone interview. He explained that the act made provisions for criminal liability against owners of dogs which inflicted damage. "If it had been proclaimed then they would have been able to charge. There is no common law for which she can be charged," he said.
Seepersad explained that a criminal offence must have two elements: Actus rheas and the mens rheas. "Actus rheas means the physical act, the act of the dog biting the child and then there is the mental element (mens rheas) where you must prove the owner purposely set out to use the dog to inflict injury, for example, if she was at home, saw the child coming, opened the gate and told the dog to attack the child." However, he said, the act would have taken away the need to establish the mental element. Meanwhile, Ezekiel who sustained severe injuries to his back and abdomen, is warded at a private institution where his condition is said to be improving.