Sean Garner said the dog attack was ‘dreadful’ and told a court: “I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy”
15:02, 27 Mar 2026Updated 15:03, 27 Mar 2026
Sean Garner(Image: ALAN DEMPSEY)
A dad whose XL bully killed a pensioner was accused of being a “coward” after his pregnant girlfriend attended the scene instead of him and was arrested. 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 has 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 on February 24 last year. 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, a former 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.
Appearing suited in the witness box, Garner continued giving evidence for a second day today, Friday. Under cross-examination from prosecution counsel David Birrell, he was asked about a message from his mum Maureen Garner following the attack, in which she said, referencing his girlfriend Lauren Lawler: “Say they’re Lauren’s dogs. She’ll get off with a fine and you’ll go back to jail.”
Garner told the court “she’s got mental health issues, just so you know”, before it was put to him that his mother was “advising him to lie”. At this, he said: “That’s correct, what I didn’t do. I didn’t do anything what anyone told me to. I went in and told the truth. I was devastated [at] what happened.”
Mr Birrell thereafter asked about another message from Garner’s sister Stephanie, who told him: “I’d say you’re minding whatever dogs done it for your mate who’s gone Thailand. Don’t know who you would say though.”
When told that his “mother and sister were advising him to lie”, Garner again said “as you can see, I didn’t lie”. Having referred to these conversations as “brainstorming”, he added: “We didn’t know what happened. My family were all talking to each other. We didn’t know the seriousness of it.”
Mr Birrell alleged that his family had been “planning and plotting lies”, to which Garner replied: “I haven’t done anything. I haven’t lied once. I’ve told the truth from the very start. We still didn’t know what happened. We didn’t know the seriousness of what happened.
“We didn’t know. We knew something had happened with the dogs. We didn’t know what. If I did, I would have went straight back to the premises. I waited for the police. The police didn’t come.”
Having met his pregnant partner on a car park beside a branch of Pizza Hut on a retail park around half a mile from his home, Garner was asked how long his girlfriend has been expectant at the time. He replied: “She was pregnant with our third child now. She actually got cancer while she was pregnant and she’s had to undergo therapy while this has all been going on. I’ve had a lot going on in my life.”
Garner then confirmed that Ms Lawler was “possibly around a couple of months” pregnant. Asked why she had returned home with the couple’s two young children instead of him, he told the court: “She was already on her way. She was already going home. I said, I’ll met you at Pizza Hut and give you my phone. I’m not lying. I’ve got nothing to lie about.”
When Mr Birrell put to him that “it was cowardly”, Garner responded: “My girlfriend was due home at the time of the incident. The dogs would have been left for two-and-a-half hours. If you want to call me a coward, that’s your opinion.”
Having been again asked whether his behaviour was “cowardly”, Garner added “yes I agree, I was a coward and my girlfriend went” and said of his girlfriend’s subsequent arrest and interview: “They kept her in for over 24 hours. She told them from the very start she had nothing to do with it.”
But Mr Birrell said: “That was your fault. You sent her to deal with the police. If you went to your house, she wouldn’t have been arrested.”
Garner, who yesterday told the court that he had not returned home as he was banned from driving and feared he would be arrested, then replied: “She would have still went to the property. She would have been faced with the same thing.”
Having been asked why he “didn’t leave his truck at the retail park and walk”, Garner said: “Because I didn’t. I was driving. I was waiting to find out what had happened. I didn’t think anything serious had happened. I thought something happened with the dogs. I didn’t know the seriousness of it.”
Mr Birrell then referred to a voice note which Garner had sent to his sister via Facebook, the content of which could not be recovered by police but prompted a reply of “hahahaha ffs, literally though”. The prosecution counsel put to him: “I suggest that you knew it was your dogs. You knew it was really serious. You send an audio file. Whatever you sent was funny, wasn’t it?”
Garner replied: “You’ve tried to say I make a joke about an old person, which is untrue. It must have been [funny], but it’s not a joke about anybody. I would never joke about an old person. Why would I do that?”
When Mr Birrell put to him that he was “making light of the situation”, Garner added: “No, I weren’t. I don’t know what that was about. I really wish yous had it to play. You’d see I didn’t know what had happened.”
Garner was thereafter accused of “legging it back to Liverpool”, having stayed the night at his girlfriend’s mum’s house in Belle Vale, and “avoiding the police” before handing himself in two days later. Mr Birrell asked him whether he “wanted time to think of a story”, to which he responded: “No. Why did I have a story to think about? A man had died. The first thing I asked about was, was he alright. That was the most important thing.
“I said the same thing from the very start. I’ve told yous from the start who I’ve messaged, where I’ve went. I weren’t hiding from the police. I weren’t doing anything wrong. I handed myself in. I’ve been honest with yous about every single thing.”
Referencing Garner’s comment under interview, when he stated that the incident had “come as a shock, out of nowhere”, Mr Birrell put to him that he “must have seen this coming”. But the defendant said: “How can I see it coming when I’ve owned these dogs for five and seven years? I knew these dogs. These dogs were round my family every day, no issues whatsoever.”
But Mr Birrell added: “We have seen messages that the dog had caught your mother. We have seen messages that your dog fought with Malibu. We have seen messages that the dog was ‘missing nuts and bolts’. We have seen messages that the dog could break out of places.”
Garner replied: “I’ve owned these dogs for years and I’ve never had a problem. I’ve never had an issue. Not one issue, not nothing. No aggression. My dogs have never done nothing wrong. I’ve always been on top of my dogs. I’m a proper owner. I’m not stupid.”
Mr Birrell thereafter asked “what the point was” of the jury being shown a series of photographs and videos of Toretto during Garner’s defence case, including a clip of the dog being petted by his young daughter. He replied: “To show he was a loving dog.”
Garner agreed that the XL bully was “soft and cuddly” before Mr Birrell showed the court a computer generated image which depicted the extent of Mr McColl’s facial injuries and said: “Let’s look at another photograph. Do you see it? Your soft and cuddly dog did that and you are responsible, aren’t you?”
But Garner replied “no, I’m not responsible”. He was then re-examined by his own counsel Lloyd Morgan, who asked him whether Toretto had ever previously attempted to open the gate to the back garden.
Garner said: “No. He weren’t a dog that would try and get out. He was always used to his play area. He knew what he was going out there for. He’d play with the other dog. I had no queries about him. He was a good dog.”
Asked what “reasonable steps he had taken to prevent Toretto from being out of control”, Garner told the court: “The first step is, I put him in the shed and shut the door. I had a padlock onto that, which has got the key in the padlock. After that, the gate is also on a latch, then it’s kept secure with the bolt. You grabbed the bolt, put the bolt through the gate and click it back in.
“I wouldn’t leave my dog with just the latch. I’ve always took measures to make sure my dog was secure. I made sure I done every step I possibly could do to make sure he was safe. I could never imagine a man who had been the pub would go up my path on the way home and do what he done to let my dog out.”
When asked “how he felt” about the incident, Garner said: “I was devastated. I was upset. I was terrified. I didn’t know what was gonna happen. I didn’t know what had happened.
“It was dreadful. I’d never wish that on anyone. It’s horrible what’s happened to him. I’ve got no words to describe what had happened to him. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.”
John McColl, 84, died after he was attacked by an XL Bully(Image: Cheshire Police)
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.”
Garner 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.
“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 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.