Wigan residents talk about night of horrific dog attack on elderly man

People living on Moore Lane in Standish reported two dogs – allegedly pitbulls or a similar breed – were running loose in the area at around 9.45pm on Friday.

An elderly man, who was out walking his three small pet dogs, was attacked by the canines.

Neighbours were alerted to the attack by shouts and screams from a field at the bottom of Moore Lane, where many dog owners take their pets for walks.

It is understood the dog walker suffered a bite to his finger and rushed to a vet to get help for his pets.

One neighbour said: “From what I understand – I was talking to the man it happened to – the helicopter put its spotlight on and followed the dogs all the way home to an address.

"He’s okay, but one of the dogs is in a veterinary hospital in Manchester. He showed me where he had his finger bitten. People were beating the dogs because they wouldn’t let go.”

Another neighbour said: “We’d been sat outside and it was the helicopter that we saw. It started circling round and round. Then it put its spotlight on a while later. We were watching it and it was lighting up our garden as it was going over us. I said, ‘it’s searching for someone or something’.”

A third neighbour said: “It happened on the field, that’s where everyone round here walks their dogs. I could hear shouting but I didn’t see anything, it was too dark.”

Linzi Freeman commented on Wigan Today’s Facebook page to say the man who was attacked was her mother’s partner and he was now suffering from flashbacks.

She claimed the man with the loose dogs “actually ran away and hid in the brambles, peeping through the gaps and watching the attack”. The victim shouted for help but the man ran away, she said.

She later added: “The owner has now offered to pay for the vet bill so that’s a positive. We have also been informed his friend was with the dogs and not the owner.”