The dog had to be shot 10 times after it ‘savaged’ John McColl, whom an expert witness told a jury the banned breed ‘had as his prize’
20:21, 25 Mar 2026Updated 20:21, 25 Mar 2026
John McColl
An XL bully had not been fed for a period of around 10 hours before it killed a pensioner, a trial has heard. The dog, called Toretto, had to be shot 10 times by firearms officers after “savaging” 84-year-old John McColl, a jury at Liverpool Crown Court have been told.
It came after the “confused” OAP entered the driveway of alleged “irresponsible” owner Sean Garner’s then home on Bardsley Avenue in Warrington while on his way home from the pub. Neighbours attempted to stave off the attack using a brush, a golf club and a spirit level but to no avail as the banned breed “guarded” the elderly victim “as if he were its prey or its food”.
Garner, now of Dinaro Close in Belle Vale, was meanwhile said to have “made jokes while doctors were valiantly trying to save Mr McColl’s life”, having earlier described his “family pet” as “missing a few nuts and bolts”. The 31-year-old, an XL bully breeder, is currently on trial accused of causing Mr McColl’s death by being the owner of a dangerously out of control dog.
Stuart Davidson, a dog legislation officer with Merseyside Police and former police dog trainer, was called to give evidence to the court this afternoon, Wednesday. David Birrell, prosecuting, put to the expert witness during his questioning: “You refer to human tissue having been found in the dog’s stomach.
“You mention the fact that no dog food was found in the dog’s stomach. I think it is right that there was some digested matter in the intestine of the dog. You say that the dog had not been fed for some period of time. Can you help us with roughly how long?”
Mr Davidson replied from the witness box: “In my opinion, and from the necropsy, the dog does not appear to have been fed, I would say, for probably a good 10 hours. Digested food normally will stay in the stomach for six to 10 hours, depending on the size of the dog and what type of food.
“From what was in the contents of the stomach, there had been some period of time. Also, looking at the bowl, there was no evidence of any food or any little bits of food in the area.”
Asked to describe the effects of hunger on a dog, Mr Davidson told the court: “The dog will start to get frustrated. Dogs have been known to start to eat soil because they are that hungry and wound up.
“They will look for something to satisfy that hunger inside them. In the stomach, some solid orange plastic was found. The dog has got hold of something to try and satisfy itself. It has ripped that, chewed that, then swallowed that.
“The dog will become frustrated. A way of getting that out of its system is, it will attack. It will become aggressive. It could find something on the floor and bite it and chew it. XL bullies have very strong jaws. They will use that aggression to bite and rip. They will also focus on anything that comes nearby, just because they are pent up and aggressive, they have got to have that release.”
Mr Birrell went on to ask the witness about “resource guarding”, of which Mr Davidson said: “If the dog has something, it will guard that as a prize. It has won that. It has got hold of that and it is going to keep hold of it. It’s almost like having a toy.
“It wants to keep hold of it and will stop anybody coming to take it off it. There was mention of the dog going forward but then returning back, basically to stop anybody going near what, obviously, the dog had as his prize.”
Of “pieces of flesh which appeared to have been swallowed whole” by the dog, Mr Davidson added: “The dogs are basically starving. They want to get something inside their stomach. It has just torn and swallowed, torn and swallowed. There was no chewing that took place. The dog, in my opinion, was in a state where it just wanted to get something inside its stomach.”
Mr Birrell finally asked in his questioning: “It is agreed by the defence that this dog was dangerously out of control on the 24th of February last year. In your opinion, what factors might have contributed to the dog being dangerously out of control?”
Mr Davidson responded: “Probably a number of factors. There was no visible sign of water, no visible sign of food, nothing to enrich the dog, no toys. There didn’t appear to be a suitable place for the dog to move itself so it could be comfortable. There was the shed, but that wasn’t a suitable area for that dog to be comfortable.
“There was also mention of another dog, being moved away from that dog and the dog being wound up and agitated with regards to that. The dog was frustrated because it didn’t have anything to occupy itself.”
Mr Birrell previously told the jury of eight men and four women during the prosecution’s opening that Mr McColl had “for some reason, wandered into the defendant’s driveway” at around 6pm on February 24 last year. He added: “We will never know why he did it. Perhaps he was confused. He had been to the pub, although he had not had very much to drink. We will never know.
“What we do know is that, after he entered the defendant’s driveway, the dog attacked him, and it just would not let him go. People tried to help him, grown men with weapons, hitting the dog. But it was no use. The dog would not let him go. The dog guarded him as if he were its prey. It savaged him.
“The police were called, and they arrived on the scene quickly. But the first police officers, who were unarmed, could not get to Mr McColl. Firearms officers came with guns. They had to shoot the dog. They had to shoot it 10 times.”
Mr Birrell detailed how one officer was required to shoot the XL bully nine times with a pistol while another blasted the “large, savage dog” with a shotgun. PCs then also shot dead a second, female XL bully which was found on the property so as to “not to take any chances”.
Meanwhile, Mr McColl was rushed to hospital but died a month later from his injuries. Police reportedly attempted to contact Garner and asked him to return home during a phone call, but he was instead said to have “avoided police” as family members messaged him “advising him to lie”.
Mr Birrell added of these texts: “He made light of the situation. He was making jokes while doctors were valiantly trying to save John McColl’s life. He avoided the police for two days before he handed himself in.”
Sean Garner, 30 and of Dinaro Avenue in Belle Vale, appearing in court charged in connection with a fatal XL bully attack(Image: ALAN DEMPSEY)
Garner, who appeared suited in the dock, was then said to have “lied” under interview, having claimed that the dog had “never shown any sign of aggression”, although Toretto was evidenced to have fought with the other XL bully, Malibu, and injured the defendant’s mother previously. He also claimed that the dog was not an XL bully, although he “now admits that”.
Mr Birrell said: “In this trial, he is likely to tell you more lies. He is likely to claim that he kept the dog in a tool shed or something like that. We will hear evidence from a neighbour and from a police dog expert, who tells us that the dog was not kept in a tool shed but was kept on a patio. It was covered in dog faeces, dog poo. All there was keeping the dog on that patio was a metal gate with a latch.”
While Garner claimed under interview that the gate was “locked with a bolt”, Mr Birrell told the court: “There was no bolt, just that latch that we can see. We say that this dog, this large, powerful dog, could very easily have pawed that latch. We say that is probably what happened.
“However the dog got out, after it got out, it was dangerously out of control. And, whilst it was dangerously out of control, it attacked and it killed Mr McColl, and we say that the defendant is responsible.
“He is responsible because he kept the dog when he knew it was dangerous. He knew that it had fought with other dogs and hurt people. We will see text messages where he said that it was ‘missing a few nuts and bolts’, and yet he kept it.
“He is responsible because he did not feed the dog properly. A police dog expert will tell us that the dog had not been fed for some time. There was no food in its stomach. The expert will tell us that, if dogs are left hungry, then they can become irritable and aggressive. The expert will tell us that the dog appeared to be guarding Mr McColl as if he were its prey or its food.
“We say that he was an irresponsible dog owner. He did not have an exemption certificate for the dog. He did not have a certificate for the other XL bully either. Despite that, he was breeding these dogs. He was breeding more illegal XL bullies to make money. Irresponsible, we say, reckless.
“In this trial, he might try to argue that Mr McColl was somehow to blame for entering his driveway. There is no doubt that John McColl entered his driveway. That does not excuse what happened. It does not absolve him of responsibility.
John McColl, 84, died after he was attacked by an XL Bully(Image: Cheshire Police)
“All sorts of people might enter your driveway. Postmen, Amazon delivery drivers, political canvassers, children chasing balls. The possibilities are endless. But it is not acceptable for your dog to attack someone and to kill them just because they enter your driveway.
“The defendant admits he was the owner of the dog. He admits that the dog was dangerously out of control, and he admits that the dog injured John McColl, and John McColl died as a result of his injuries, but he denies that he is responsible. He says that is not his fault, not at all, not in the slightest. He says, and his case is, that he took reasonable steps to keep the dog under control. That is his case, and that is what you have to decide in this trial.”
Garner, who is represented by Lloyd Morgan, denies being the owner of a dog which caused injury while dangerously out of control, having pleaded guilty to two counts of possession of a dog of a banned breed without an exemption certificate. The trial, before Brian Cummings KC, continues.