Postal Workers Welcome New Dog Laws

13 May 2014, 08:17 | Updated: 30 March 2016, 13:50

From today there are tougher punishments for dog owners whose pets attack people in England and Wales.

From today there are tougher punishments for dog owners whose pets attack people in England and Wales.

They can now be jailed for 14 rather than two years if their animal kills someone.

Ron Hasrani is a safety rep for the Royal Mail in Leicester; he says postal workers are attacked every week:

'It's a big, big change in the law.

'Previously dog attacks that happened on private property has never been part of the law.

'Some of the attacks have been really vicious where people have been badly beaten.'

'Attacks leave workers mentally scarred'

Ron has told capitalfm.com that some of his colleagues have been mentally scarred by attacks:

'You don't really get to know and hear about the psychological part of incidents when they've been attacked by dogs.

'Normally they're [colleagues] are ridiculed by the public, you know it's a standing joke 'a postman's attacked by a dog'; the sympathy is not there for an individual.'