The sickening XL Bully bloodbath that proves ban has failed… as fatal dog attacks RISE in 2024 despite crackdown
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IT was a scene to send shivers down the spine of any parent. Wrestling with the jaws of a rampaging XL Bully, a mother desperately battled to free her eight-month-old baby girl as the hound "picked her up like a rag doll and shook her". The terrifying incident, which saw the tot airlifted to hospital in Kent earlier this month, came just weeks after 10-year-old Savannah Bentham was savaged to death by a dog of the same breed in her family's caravan in Malton, North Yorkshire.
![[Esther Martin was mauled to death by two XL Bullies as she tried to protect her grandson]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/essex-police-pa-wire-note-877098690.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
These little girls are two of the latest dog attack victims of 2024 - with the death toll now even higher than 2023, despite the wide-reaching XL Bully ban rolled out at the start of the year. On February 1, it became illegal to own an American Bully XL dog in England and Wales without a certificate of exemption. They must be kept on a lead and muzzled in public places and it's illegal to breed or sell them.
![[Gilana Milner says she feels lucky to be alive after she was attacked by an XL Bully]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/2023-attack-undergo-emergency-surgery-958084247.jpg?strip=all&w=713)
The ban was brought in after a number of high-profile cases in which people were killed by the breed - including that of Ian Price, who died trying to protect his elderly mother from two crazed XLs who had escaped from a neighbour's window in Staffordshire.
![[Gilana had to undergo emergency surgery]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/2023-attack-undergo-emergency-surgery-958084190.jpg?strip=all&w=761)
However, despite the crackdown, a total of 10 people have been killed by out-of-control dogs since February in horrific and bloody attacks across the UK - five of those by XL Bullies. The tally is an unexpected and worrying rise from 2023, which saw nine people lose their lives from dog attacks, with three of them concerning the controversial breed.
![[Esther's daughter Sonia Martin has spoken out against the 'failed' Bully ban]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/woman-killed-attack-dogs-visiting-958090009.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
