Search

23 Oct 2025

Man charged over fatal dog attack on pensioner

Man charged over fatal dog attack on pensioner

A man has been charged after an elderly woman was killed in a dog attack.

Lucille Downer, 85, died after being attacked by two American bulldogs in the back garden of her home in Boundary Avenue, Rowley Regis, near Birmingham, on April 2 2021.

West Midlands Police said at the time that Ms Downer suffered “multiple” injuries in the “sustained” attack after the dogs escaped from a neighbouring property through a hole in a fence, with her family saying in a statement that they would “miss her dearly”.

Darren Pritchard, 44, has now been charged with being the owner or person in charge of two dogs dangerously out of control causing injury resulting in death, police said on Monday.

Pritchard, of Merrivale Road, Smethwick, has also been charged with possession with intent to supply cannabis, and production of cannabis, and will appear at Dudley Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday.

The dogs were humanely destroyed after the incident.

To continue reading this article,
please subscribe and support local journalism!


Subscribing will allow you access to all of our premium content and archived articles.

Subscribe

To continue reading this article for FREE,
please kindly register and/or log in.


Registration is absolutely 100% FREE and will help us personalise your experience on our sites. You can also sign up to our carefully curated newsletter(s) to keep up to date with your latest local news!

Register / Login

Buy the e-paper of the Donegal Democrat, Donegal People's Press, Donegal Post and Inish Times here for instant access to Donegal's premier news titles.

Keep up with the latest news from Donegal with our daily newsletter featuring the most important stories of the day delivered to your inbox every evening at 5pm.