A police officer was left with serious injuries that required surgery after being viciously attacked by an out-of-control XL Bully. 

The local Leicestershire officer, accompanied by a colleague, visited the home of Aden Hollyoake on Lewis Close, Ibstock, on Tuesday 26 October, 2023 where they were met with his partner, Shanell Lawrence.

After the officers informed Lawrence that they were wanting to speak to her about Hollyoake, Lawrence informed the pair that she had dogs in the kitchen but they were ‘fine to come inside’.

Less than a minute after being invited by Lawrence into the property, one of the dogs, an XL bully, managed to escape from the kitchen, pushing open the closed door before rushing through the lounge and attacking an officer. 

Harrowing footage, taken from the attacked officer’s body worn camera, shows him shouting in pain and struggling to release the XL bully which had clamped his jaws onto his inner thigh. 

The attack was so violent that its footage has not been entirely released to the public, due to its distressing nature. 

In an attempt to stop the devastating violence, his colleague, who had been stood behind, discharged his cannister of Captor, an incapacitant spray. However, this proved unsuccessful in an attempt to get the canine to stop but this was unsuccessful.

After almost a minute of biting, the aggressive animal finally let go and Lawrence moved him into the back garden as the two officers managed to escape through the front door.

Two Leicestershire police officers had been visiting the home of Aden Hollyoake (picured), 33, in Ibstock on Tuesday 26 October, 2023, when one was viciously attacked by his XL bully dog

Hollyoake’s partner, Shanell Lawrence, 26, answered the door and told the officers that she had dogs in the kitchen but that that they were ‘fine to come inside’

The XL bully managed to escape from the kitchen, pushing open the closed door before rushing through the lounge and attacking an officer, clamping his jaw onto his inner thigh 

In the shocking footage, one officer can be heard radioing for help, saying: ‘Quick, I need an ambulance, close that door now’.

Nearby colleagues then rushed to the scene to provide immediate first aid to the injured officer.

He was later taken to hospital where he had an operation to repair and stitch four bite wounds to his leg. His colleague sustained a small laceration to his finger.

The XL bully was removed from the property alongside another dog which was in a crate in the kitchen at the time of the incident. 

Tests later confirmed this dog to be a Pit Bull Terrier which were banned in the UK in 1991. At present, both dogs remain in secure kennels.

Lawrence and Hollyoake, who was not home at the time of the incident and was the owner of both dogs, were both later arrested and interviewed about the incident.

Lawrence suggested in an interview that the dog had only attacked the officer as they were strangers in the house and denied the dog had acted dangerously.

Meanwhile, in his interview, Hollyoake also denied the XL bully dog was dangerous and that he did not know that the Pit Bill was such a breed. Instead, he said that he believed it was an XL bully. 

The attacked officer was later taken to hospital where he had an operation to repair and stitch four bite wounds to his leg

In September 2024, both Lawrence and Hollyoake  pleaded guilty to being in charge of a dog, namely a male of the XL Bully type, which was dangerously out of control

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Hollyoake had had the XL bully legally registered and microchipped but not the Pit Bull, which he had owned for over a year. 

Detective Constable James Highton, the investigating officer for the case, said that the alarming footage shows ‘what can happen when dogs are not kept under the right control.’ 

Constable Highton added: ‘Officers have a right that every day they come to work and carry out their duties safely and to not be faced with such an attack.

‘He had to take a month off work to physically recover and has been left weary of dogs especially larger dogs and when entering homes as part of his work.

‘Not only has the incident had a lasting effect on him but also his colleague who was with him and managed to avoid any serious injury.’

In September 2024, both Lawrence, 26, of Lewis Close, and Hollyoake, 33, of no fixed abode, pleaded guilty to being in charge of a dog, namely a male of the XL Bully type, which was dangerously out of control. 

Detective Constable James Highton, the investigating officer for the case, said that the alarming footage shows ‘what can happen when dogs are not kept under the right control’

The pair also pleaded guilty at Leicester Crown Court to being in possession or custody a dog to which section 1 of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 applied, namely a female dog of the pit bull type.

In November 2024, Lawrence was sentenced and given a 12-month community order, while Hollyoake was sentenced on Friday January 31 to two years and three months in jail. 

It comes a year after it became a criminal offence to own an XL Bully, the largest kind of American bully dog, in England and Wales without an exemption certificate.

The dogs must be kept on a lead and muzzled in public places, as well as neutered.

There were 10,924 hospital admissions for dog bites in England in 2023-24, an increase by 9,424 in 2022-23. 

Meanwhile, Ministry of Justice data has shown that in the year to June 2024, 772 people across England and Wales were prosecuted for allowing a dog to injure another person in public, a marked increase from 628 prosecutions in the year before.