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00:04these are some of the most dangerous dogs in the UK if they are not raised correctly then they
00:12become lethal killing machine fact the XL bully was banned two years ago but they're still taking
00:22lives I got a phone call from my brother he said that Morgan was dead she'd been killed by a
00:29dog
00:29kennels housing seized dogs are bursting at the scenes hello we've got a job on we've got a dog
00:36that's attacked a person in the car traumatic injuries that you would see on the equivalent of
00:42a battlefield animal welfare campaigners say it's time to rethink the law the problem with these dogs
00:49is this end of the lead not that end the problem is the person who's holding the dog panorama
00:55investigates whether the ban on XL bullies is working
01:11it was just a normal day I'd been at work Kayla had been at work Morgan had just moved down
01:18to
01:18Bristol on the Saturday it was February 2025 when 19 year old Morgan Dorset left her Shropshire home
01:26for a new life in Bristol it's very alternative city it's got the music the art that she likes
01:36she just loved life yeah she was going down to see if this was the life that she wanted I
01:44will see you
01:45soon I love you just four days after arriving in Bristol Morgan was attacked by an XL bully in the
01:54flat where she was staying Morgan's uncle was the first to hear the news he literally just said Morgan's
02:03dad Marie Morgan's been killed as the family drove south from Shropshire back home Marie's video doorbell rang
02:13it was the police through the intercom Marie was able to speak to them from her car
02:19are you at home in the moment no um obviously we've already heard from my brother okay so we're on
02:28our
02:29way to Bristol already when you get down there um the police down there will be able to contact you
02:38as well all right all right then oh my god our condolences for the news obviously yeah thank you
02:47oh my god and it wasn't until they said our deepest condolences that I knew for definite that she was
02:54actually dead what was the breed of dog that killed Morgan it was an XL bully
03:07the dog weighed more than her he went for the neck I hope and pray that it was quick
03:15the amount of questions you ask your big sister every day like what am I gonna wear I don't know
03:25does this look okay you know just big sister will give you an honest answer
03:32she's always been there she was the constant in my life
03:41yeah until she wasn't
03:45a woman has since been charged with having a dog dangerously out of control causing injury
03:52resulting in death Morgan was killed just one year after a new law was introduced to stop
03:58fatal dog attacks like this the legislation doesn't work my daughter wouldn't be dead now if it did work
04:07Kayla wouldn't have lost his sister the law needs to change three years ago I investigated the trade in
04:16extreme dogs for Panorama I found American bullies being used as status symbols by criminals
04:26this is my boy that's going on my bitch short compacts messy bed really short years the XL is the
04:34largest
04:35type of the American bully breed we found it was being deliberately bred for increased size and muscle an
04:42XL bully is a big broad meaty dog big chunky head okay some would say intimidating looking dog other would
04:51go
04:51no no they're just a big soft teddy bear if they are raised correctly temperament is fantastic and they are
04:59incredibly
04:59reliable um dopey family pets they are not raised correctly then they become lethal killing machines fact
05:10in the three years leading up to the ban the UK government recorded 23 fatal dog attacks
05:18it's said the XL bully was involved in many of the deaths a heartbreaking note a close-knit community torn
05:26apart
05:28police say the death of a 17-month-old girl after being attacked by a pet dog has left her
05:33family and the local community
05:34was killed in Staffordshire police have described as an horrendous attack by two dogs in broad daylight
05:42senior police officers say they were becoming overwhelmed what were your officers facing individuals
05:48with traumatic injuries that you would say on the equivalent of a battlefield we were saying people
05:56with decapitation level injuries and including children this was something that your officers had
06:03never really faced before hugely hugely hugely difficult for for the officers that were turning up to deal
06:08with those something had to be done yeah there's there's no doubt about that whatsoever the prime
06:15minister at the time Rishi Sunak said he would take action these dogs are dangerous I want to reassure the
06:22public that we will take all necessary steps to keep people safe the XL bully was added to the government's
06:30list of banned breeds in England and Wales bands in Scotland and Northern Ireland followed the dogs could
06:38no longer be used for breeding a tactic designed to eradicate it altogether for those who already
06:45owned an XL bully they would have to apply for an exemption and follow restrictions the law had to
06:52make a dog owner accountable specifically that your dog is muzzled in public places is on lead in public
07:00places is neutered is exempt so it has a certificate of exemption as a banned breed okay that the owner
07:09has it registered to one address one address only and that they do not sell give away the dog the
07:17alternative
07:17for owners was to take 200 pounds in compensation from the government and have their dog put down if they
07:24did nothing they risked their dog being seized and destroyed the new law didn't go down well with many
07:35owners leading animal welfare groups including the RSPCA agreed something needed to be done but argued against a ban
07:45targeting the XL bully breed just isn't a reliable predictor of aggressive behavior but unfortunately breed specific
07:53legislation suggests to the public that there is such a thing as a dangerous breed or a dangerous type therefore
08:00by
08:00virtue of that that you've then got dogs who are safe and we know that that's not true
08:06before a ban could be imposed the government had to decide what exactly is an XL bully the definition is
08:15not a
08:15simple as you might think this is a well-trained female XL bully they're smaller than the males
08:25XLs are not pure breed dogs like Labradors or Cocker Spaniels they're a crossbreed often a mix of
08:33American Pitbull Terrier and American Bulldog Robber Lane has trained dogs for more than 40 years
08:41so the government came up with a set of standards a measure set of measurements that say what makes or
08:46doesn't make an XL bully so the length of her muzzle the broadness of her skull and right across the
08:53top
08:53of her head all of those would be indications as to whether or not she's an XL bully the whole
08:58length of
08:59her body all of these measurements would be taken all the way down her body to her haunches her back
09:03legs
09:03and how straight they are all of those would be measurements that would determine whether or not
09:07she's an XL bully
09:11the government said an XL bully had to have a muscular body and a blocky head the female had to
09:19be at least
09:2019 inches tall and 20 inches for a male it was down to owners to do the measuring and decide
09:27whether their
09:27dog met the criteria come on Sarah drew it wasn't sure about her dog blue who was only six months
09:38old
09:39when the ban was coming in we already knew that blue was going to be a big dog just because
09:44of the size of
09:45his head his muscular body even at a young age so you exempted him as an XL bully yes we
09:51did although
09:52blue meets height i don't think he's large enough or heavy enough stocky enough or broad enough if he
10:00was 19.5 i wouldn't have had to exempt him does that half an inch make him less dangerous more
10:08safe
10:09well according to the government yes it doesn't matter how tall blue is how wide his chest is
10:17he's still a good dog and he's got a lovely temperament but in the eyes of the government
10:22in the eyes of the government because of his height and because he ticks off a few of the criteria
10:27he's
10:27a dangerous dog more than 67 000 applications for exemption were completed by dog owners the government
10:37was only expecting 10 000 we've discovered the day the law came into force in england and wales
10:44the government changed one of the criteria after the window for exemption applications had closed on
10:51the 1st of february 2024 updated guidance for enforcers was issued which contained a different
10:58measurement than that which had been published for owners and the members of the public to make their
11:03assessments against the new measurement for the XL bully changed the size of the dog's head
11:11owners who'd compared their dogs against the previous size criteria and had chosen not to exempt as a
11:18result may now own a banned breed others may have had their dogs destroyed when they didn't need to
11:26if you are required to measure your dog and make a decision that impacts the rest of your dog's life
11:32and the rest of your life as well to avoid criminalizing yourself that's a really significant
11:38change because it could mean that you you made the wrong decision and it's too late by that point
11:44the government says it convened a group of experts and other stakeholders to define the physical
11:51characteristics of the XL bully it also says the changing criteria was a minor technical change and
12:00the real world impacts of this change are minimal what do you think about this criteria change
12:07and what does it say about the ban yeah because they didn't know what they were looking at what
12:13they were doing they don't know what an XL bully is it just seems completely inconsistent it's absolutely
12:20crazy i don't know of any other situation where we base a dog solely on its appearance if you say
12:25that
12:26dog is dangerous it's no less dangerous because its head was half an inch too small or its nose was
12:31half an inch too long it's not going to become any less dangerous the trouble with trying to ban a
12:39specific type of dog is that one size doesn't fit all so it was on the 6th of november they'd
12:48had
12:48like a belated halloween disco at school come to coming to pick him up after school and he was all
12:56excited he was literally in like the best moods ever he had a little lollipop joanne and her five-year
13:01-old
13:02son roman began the walk home through a park in doncaster the ban had been in place for 21 months
13:08there was a man and his dog it wasn't on a lead it wasn't on a muzzle and it saw
13:14roman so i just said
13:16to him do not run as soon as i said that the dog had just ran what did you think
13:22it was in terms of
13:23the type of dog i thought it was an excel i thought it was an excel bully it was a
13:27big bully type dog
13:29what happened next is upsetting to hear he didn't stand a chance literally like the dogs just come
13:37jumped at him latched onto him by the face pulled him to the floor i thought he was dead after
13:43i literally
13:43thought oh my god like my brain's like he's dead he's dead he's dead i've seen all the blood he
13:48was
13:48screaming i'm gonna die all i could really do was like scoop him up as a mother watching that happen
13:54to my child i i don't quite have the words to describe it roman was rushed to hospital and underwent
14:06surgery his scars have healed well but the attack has had a lasting effect have you still got your
14:12vaseline yeah have you been putting it on yeah yeah it's changed us forever it's changed roman
14:18forever it's changed our whole outlook right now we're planning a same a sixth birthday party which
14:23he's really excited for we could have buried him we could have we could have been planning a funeral
14:27this one stupid action from somebody who doesn't have the dog under control could let you cost your
14:32child's life a man was arrested and the dog which attacked roman was seized joanne thought it was an
14:40excel bully but an official assessment later showed it didn't meet the criteria they're still doing
14:47damage they're still attacking they're still causing trauma they're still nearly taking kids lives people
14:53are still getting bitten people are still reporting dangerous dogs to the police people are still
14:58dying because of incidents involved in dogs we ultimately want everyone to be safe and what we
15:06don't want is a focus on one type of dog and this is the problem we have to recognize that
15:12any dog poses
15:14risk to people in terms of whether or not they can use aggressive behavior it's not about breed
15:22even when xl bullies have been exempted by their owners they've still attacked in september 2025 18
15:31year old nikita was attacked by two xl bullies as she walked her puppy maizey
15:38it was all morning she was like sat looking at me waiting for me to take her so though i'll
15:43just
15:43check around the corner for a little bit just yards from nikita's home two xl bullies had escaped from
15:51their garden they weren't muzzled he starts running out towards me one came around and grabbed her
16:00and just started running pulling me with her i was shouting at the dog wanting it to just let go
16:08of
16:08maizey but just shouting help weren't you and let go get off yeah workmen who'd climbed onto their van's
16:18roof for safety tried to pull nikita up too but she wouldn't let go of maize's lead one of the
16:25dogs
16:26then turned on nikita it was when i was shouting at one of the dogs the other one started biting
16:33me
16:34where had you been bitten i had one on my elbow one on my leg and one on my back
16:39when did you realize
16:41that you'd lost maizey it was when the men on the band had told me i had to let go
16:47of her and they
16:49had just said she's gone and i just let go and ran i was just thinking they were going to
17:00do the same
17:00to me that they did to her and thought you were going to die
17:11figures show that dog attacks in general have been rising year on year since 2018
17:24we've found that in the 12 months after the ban attacks involving xl bullies killed six people
17:33last year it was three people
17:39the police say the pressure being placed on them in dealing with dangerous dogs has never been greater
17:47in the dog world i've not known this type of demand in my 26 years of policing service so
17:54so this is this is a new and emerging threat if you like not just i guess from from the
18:01individual
18:02point of view but then from a resource point of view behind the scenes on that so the vehicles that
18:07we would have had before would have been designed around seizing sort of a 20 30 40 kilogram dog now
18:13we're into a 50 60 kilogram dog most forces have had to go out and source additional kenneling capacity
18:20to deal with the demand and our kennel numbers have gone up by around about a third since
18:26the xl bully band came in
18:32this is where many band breeds are taken when they're seized unable to deal with the numbers
18:39of the numbers police forces now rely on private specialist kennels panorama has been given access
18:46to one we've been asked not to identify its location or the staff we're obviously bringing dogs in from
18:54organized crime members and they could break in and take the dogs they could hurt the staff we have
19:01other sites around the country so this is just one site of many across seven kennel sites they house
19:07more than 500 xl bullies so we've got xl so these are these are coming as strays this was tied
19:16to a
19:17tree a couple of days ago is that because they haven't got the money to take to a vet's and
19:21put it to
19:21sleep the fact they can't afford to feed it anymore this might have bitten somebody and it's just been
19:27dumped we don't know many of the xls here have been abandoned we can't rehome an xl bully under present
19:33legislation so these dogs will be destroyed that is the reality of the xl bully band today every kennel
19:42is full screens cover many of them some of the dogs are so volatile our presence could provoke them
19:51i'm taken to the back of the main compound we're going to go to the security section so
19:58dogs that are a little bit more challenging this is a a particular dog that broke the dog that broke
20:07out last week changing the destruction they can do every dog is given a color grading green the least
20:14aggressive black the most now before the xl bully band 90 of our dogs would be green easy easy easy
20:24you've
20:25seen two green now so the level of aggression has changed 100 100 this is where some of the black
20:38level dogs are kept dangerously out of control bitten a neighbor on the face reached extension
20:45high score five yeah potential fatal yeah some of these dogs will be destroyed under court order those
20:54abandoned or stray will also be put down others ceased for breaches such as being without a muzzle
21:01or having no exemption certificate may be returned by the courts to their owners
21:06i need to take this call sorry hello
21:14okay uh what is it
21:18okay okay we'll get a team in cheers we've got a job on 10 minutes we need to roll we've
21:25got a dog
21:26that's attacked a person in the car uh police are on scene but they can't get the dog out
21:33as a team goes to the incident vans are backed up in the yard they've been arriving all day
21:39the rspca delivering seized dogs nearly all of them suspected xl bullies some involved in attacks
21:47others abandoned the year before the ban the rspca reported 21 xl bullies having been dumped by their
21:56owners in just the first six months after the ban 129 were abandoned we quite clearly have a problem
22:07would you re-home that dog not knowing anything would you put your name to it because i wouldn't
22:12i'm worried about when i have to sit in front of a corridor and say i'm sorry i re-homed
22:16that dog
22:16because i felt sorry for it i'm sorry your daughter's lost an arm or been killed and that's the reality
22:22of this situation it's like a horror movie when you go to some of these jobs it's bad with an
22:29adult
22:29it's even harder with a kid for me i hate school holidays i hate half term i hate christmas because
22:40i dread the phone ringing because the bytes do increase when during the holiday period and half
22:46term and it's just horrendous the whole point of the ban was to keep the public safe
22:55right so you're asking me is it working is that what we're getting to yeah okay did it protect
23:00the public 100 there must be people walking around today who haven't been attacked
23:05so i would say yes could it have been done better potentially could it have waited longer no i don't
23:11believe so was it the right decision to bring this ban in at the time yes it was because the
23:16numbers
23:17of dogs that were coming in and people that were being attacked was for me be getting out of control
23:27seizing more dogs comes at a price was the cost of all of this underestimated uh hugely so if i
23:38go back
23:38to 2018 um our kenneling expenditure was about four million pounds the estimated cost for the first
23:45year of the ban coming in was 25 million it's a lot of money that's a lot of neighborhood police
23:51officers
23:52how are you going to keep bankrolling this we are just going to have to decide um and concentrate on
23:59threat harm and risk where there is you know more of a risk to the public than those lower level
24:04cases
24:04that can't sit comfortably with you because you weren't just seizing dogs for the sake of it prior
24:11no we we we weren't seizing dogs for the sake of it prior but we've had to adjust so because
24:16it's
24:16now costing 25 million and i suspect next year will be more and so on you're now having to make
24:26would the word compromises be fair um we we're changing in policing tact on how we accept and
24:35manage risk what i mean by that but i guess what i'm saying is you're not doing that by choice
24:42you are doing it because it's the only way you can afford to carry on there's the finance
24:47conversation is a finance conversation we'll have with government but we will continue to manage that
24:52manage that risk we are perhaps applying a a slightly different element of risk tolerance we are
25:00perhaps looking at actually do i really need to seize this dog can it stay at home can i engage
25:08with
25:08the owner with some early diversion so there are other tools that are in our armory to effectively help
25:14us manage those types of cases
25:20in a statement defra the department which deals with dangerous dogs in england and wales
25:26says it's continuing to assess whether the current dog control rules are sufficient to ensure communities
25:33are protected it says the government must balance the views of those critical of the ban with its
25:41responsibility to ensure that the public is protected from dog attacks it says it will continue to
25:47monitor the operation of the ban back in shropshire marie and kayla want morgan's death to prompt
25:56major change they think the current legislation is too focused on the dog they want more focus on the
26:04owner to have a gun in your home you need to have a license you are then background checked you
26:12have to
26:13have character witnesses you they check that you've got a gun cabinet in your home where are these checks
26:18for these dogs where are they there's none you sign a visa baby you say i've got this dog it's
26:24at this
26:24address and then you're on your merry way nobody's checking on it morgan was a voice for change that's
26:34what she loved to make a change if you'd met her you'd never forget her and i think that goes
26:44for her name
26:45and her story too we can't just have her die for no reason something needs to happen from this
27:04while the legislation has divided opinion most agree on one thing responsible ownership has to
27:11play a key part in the way forward the problem with these dogs is this end of the lead not
27:18that end
27:18the problem is the person who's holding the dog and if they're irresponsible with it and you ban this
27:23breed what happens they just go out and get another one and they'll be just as irresponsible with that
27:29one what's the solution so the solution is we need better education of owners unfortunately anyone
27:36can go out and get any dog you can just go out and get a dog but what we have
27:40is people who aren't
27:41educated to rear them responsibly and so they make really poor choices the dog becomes a product of
27:46that environment and then the dog too makes poor choices these dogs will be with us for generations to
27:52come and in particular in the short term i think we will continue to see dog attacks as these dogs
27:58start to come of age and and reach maturity so i think it's going to probably get worse before it
28:06gets
28:06better however the ban plays out attacks like these still continue in the two days after panorama filmed at
28:15kennels staff say they were called to 39 separate dog attacks 17 of them involved xl bullies nine people
28:26were left with life-changing injuries
28:35the details of organizations which offer advice and support with some of the issues raised
28:41organizations go online to the bbc action line website
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