The mum of a 10-year-old boy who was mauled to death by a dog named Beast has today marked his birthday with a heartbreaking ritual in her local cemetery.
Emma Whitfield's son Jack Lis died following an attack by an XL bully at a house in Penyrheol, Caerphilly, Wales, in November 2021.
Jack would have turned 12 today and to mark the occasion Emma, for the second year in a row, visited the cemetery to sing to him happy birthday and blow bubbles in tribute to her late son.
She hopes to continue the tradition over the years with friends and family by her side.
The heartbroken mum told Wales Online: "He would be 12. It's harder when events come by that remind us of him. There is always an event or something happening and it's still very difficult.
"[Jack’s younger brother] James is finding it very hard – he's struggling massively. But we just try and take every hour as it comes. We can't change what's happened can we?"
The tragedy occurred after Jack was invited to a school friend's house without knowing that the dog could be aggressive.
A crown court heard that Beast had been captured on CCTV in the days before the incident jumping up and attempting to bite people in the street.
Beast's owner, Brandon Hayden, was eventually sentenced to four years and six months imprisonment while Amy Salter, who was asked by Hayden to take care of the dog at her home, was sentenced to three years imprisonment. Both were banned from owning a dog indefinitely.
Jack's mum Emma is now campaigning to highlight the callous practice of breeding dangerous dogs for money - for example mixing breeds to get a "muscle look".
She said: "If I can deter one illegal breeder or bad owner or stop one family from going through what we've gone through then I’ll keep going."
Across Gwent, since Jack died in November 2021 a total of 92 dog attacks were reported to Gwent Police in the year to November 2022 - up from 63 for the year to November 2019.
Emma said she struggled to understand what happened when she learnt that an 83-year-old woman had died a few streets away from where Jack had been killed in an almost identical way in December – becoming the 10th person to die in the UK from a dangerous dog attack in 2022 and again by an XL bully type mixed with a Cane Corso.
She said: "I think laws around breeding need looking at and I think people need to use an element of common sense when they see something because there were clear signs that the dog that killed Jack was dangerous and out of control but it wasn't reported.
"The dog that killed Jack was beaten, passed around, and the original owner knew it was dangerous and yet passed it on to a man who didn’t have a clue and let it attack people and didn’t do anything about it. That dog was failed from the start and was bred purely to be a status symbol."
Plaid Cymru councillor for Penyrheol Greg Ead said the community feels as though "lightning has struck twice" but the reality is this could have happened anywhere in Wales given the alarming ignorance among breeders and owners.
"There has been a lot of coverage of what happened to Jack and Shirley and both of those together have generated such a heightened awareness here now," Greg said.
"We are seeing proactive policing over the issue. Westminster isn't going to change the law next week so we've got to come together ourselves for now and recognise this is a shared problem that everyone needs to report on. It's clear the community is more vigilant and that's borne out in the figures."
A report commissioned by Defra and carried out by Middlesex University last year found evidence pointed to human behaviour as a key factor in dog bite incidents.
It suggested many attacks are preventable if owners are alert to problems when dogs are placed in the wrong situations and handled inappropriately.
The report also points to owners who unwittingly put dogs in situations where dog attacks could occur and indicated that many owners lack the skills to control their pets.
