A DOG owner has told a court how he was injured as he desperately tried to save his pet from being savaged by a large Rottweiler.

Bolton Crown Court heard how Billy, a male Rottweiler, leapt at the end section of metal fencing surrounding a building site on Tempest Road, Chew Moor, pushing part of it over and escaping onto the pavement before flinging himself at Michael O’Brien’s whippet, named Polo.

“He went for Polo with some savagery and some speed,” Mr O’Brien told a jury.

“Polo stood no chance.”

As Billy attacked the whippet Mr O’Brien, who was holding his pet’s lead, told how he was pulled backwards and fell, hitting his head on the pavement. He was left with a cut head which needed gluing in hospital, concussion and whiplash and has since been diagnosed with PTSD.

Christine Wilkinson, who was at the semi-detached bungalow she was renovating, eventually managed to grab Billy.

Wilkinson, aged 51, who is representing herself in court, denies being in charge of a dog which was dangerously out of control and injured Mr O’Brien.

Opening the case for the prosecution, William Donnelly told how Mr O’Brien, a retired project manager and his wife Jennifer had been walking Polo and a Pug Cross called Chester, who belongs to her parents, on Tempest Road on the afternoon of November 30, 2019.

But as they neared the bungalow, which was a building site surrounded by metal fencing, Billy and a second smaller Rottweiler escaped into the street.

Mr Donnelly said the scene was one of “chaos”, with the growling and yelping of the dogs as Billy sank his teeth into Polo.

Mr O’Brien described how he kicked out at Billy without success.

“Unfortunately I had light shoes on so it was like kicking an elephant — it was having no effect at all,” said Mr O’Brien.

At one point he was knocked to the ground with the his dog and the Rottweiler on top of him.

“I was wondering whether I was going to be next,” said Mr O’Brien, who said he thought the Rottweilers were being used as guard dogs at the site.

Cross-examined by Wilkinson, Mr O’Brien denied her suggestion that he had kicked out at her, leaving her with bruises and that before the Rotweillers had escaped into the street the whippet had attacked them, “chewing their faces” through the bottom of the fence.

Mr O’Brien said Polo, who needed veterinary treatment, has become increasingly timid since the incident and they have never walked past the house again.

The jury also heard from a Bolton Council dog warden who told how the Rottweilers had escaped four months earlier and been caught near the Bolton Wanderers Academy before being returned to Wilkinson’s home, a different property on Tempest Road.

“As a result Mrs Wilkinson was at least on notice that these were two dogs who were in the habit of escaping,” said Mr Donnelly.

The trial continues.