An XL Bully dog will be put down and a man charged after a dog viciously attacked a mother-of-two, ripped off her hijab and bit her on her head on a Welsh high street last summer.
On Tuesday, 25 November, a judge at Mold Crown Court heard a case after a brazen dog was set off in a targeted attack on Yasmin Begum, a Muslim mother of two, on Wrexham High Street in August 2024.
The 45-year-old owner of the XL Bully dog, Tomasz Wegner, pleaded guilty to possessing a fighting dog and to being the owner of a dog dangerously out of control. Judge Simon Mills gave Wegner a 15-month jail term suspended for two years.
Prosecutor Laura Knightley said a Muslim woman called Yasmin Begum had been standing on the High Street in Wrexham at 2.36pm on 31 August last year, seeing the defendant walking along with his dog.
She allegedly moved away because she was “scared”, said Knightley. Continuing in her description of the attack, Knightley said that “she [Begum] ran into a doorway and attempted to get away from the dog. The defendant followed her and shouted at her aggressively in the doorway she was hiding in.”
Knightley also added that “the dog then grabbed and dragged her. It removed her hijab and tried to bite her forehead.” As a result, Begum was left with teeth marks on her forehead, but fortunately, the bite did not pierce her skin.
At one point, the defendant appeared to fall on top of Begum as a witness to the attack noted that he was allegedly intoxicated.
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Another witness heard Begum screaming and rushed to help her, taking control of the dog, reattaching its muzzle and holding its metal chain until police arrived.
Traumatised from the attack
Later, Begum said Wegner had shouted abuse at her “without any provocation” and “indirectly caused me to be set on by his dog through his actions”. She said she was upset and is still traumatised from the attack.
In a victim impact statement, Yasmin said she has been left psychologically traumatised by the attack and has developed a phobia of dogs. She added that her children, who witnessed the incident, were extremely frightened, and she was left “highly concerned” about her own personal safety as well as for the safety of the children.
The court heard Wegner told police he denied it was an XL Bully and denied being drunk. Wegner also claimed that the dog was “friendly” and simply wanted to “greet” the woman.
Knightley said a destruction order was sought for the XL Bully dog, which would mean that the dog would be put down effective immediately, with kennelling costs amounting to £9,482 so far.
Joshua Gorst, defending, said the dog had never attacked anybody before this “unpleasant incident”. Wegner initially believed it to be a “Cane Corso” breed rather than an XL Bully and claimed it was “calm and gentle” before the attack.
Gorst added that Wegner, of Glaslyn, Plas Madoc, Acrefair, has “got a handle” on his alcoholism.
But the judge said Wegner has now admitted that it was indeed an XL Bully breed, so the court upheld the law and refused to return it to him.
As the judge handed down the suspended jail sentence, he also issued the destruction order for the dog, and it has now been euthanised following the horrific attack on 31 August 2024.
XL Bully dog ban
The UK Government has issued a strict set of guidelines surrounding the possession of XL Bully dogs, which read: “It’s a criminal offence to own or possess an XL Bully dog in England and Wales unless you have a valid Certificate of Exemption.”
“It’s also an offence to:
- sell an XL Bully dog
- abandon an XL Bully dog or let it stray
- give away an XL Bully dog
- breed or breed from an XL Bully dog
- have an XL Bully in public without a lead and muzzle.”
When the government underwent the process of passing the ban for England and Wales, they stated that the breed had been “disproportionately involved” in recorded dog-attack deaths since 2021.
In several known cases, XL Bullies are known to have killed their owners and children.
