Terrifying moment XL bully attacks police officer - leaving him with serious injuries that needed surgery

Shocking footage shows the moment a police officer was bitten by an XL bully - leaving him with serious injuries.

On October 26 2023, two officers attended an address in Lewis Close, Ibstock, wanting to speak to Aden Hollyoake, who lived at the address.

Hollyoake’s partner Shanell Lawrence answered the door and when officers explained they wanted to speak to her about Hollyoake, Lawrence allowed them into the address.

She told the officers she had dogs in the house, and they were in the kitchen, but they were fine to come inside.

As one of the officers was standing talking to Lawrence in the doorway from the hall into the lounge, an XL bully suddenly pushed open the closed kitchen door, before rushing through the lounge and up to the officer attacking him.

His colleague, who had been standing behind, discharged his canister of Captor, an incapacitant spray, in an attempt to get the XL bully to stop, but this was unsuccessful.

The dog finally let go after almost a minute of biting and Lawrence moved him into the back garden as the two officers managed to escape through the front door.

The injured officer was taken to hospital where he had an operation to repair and stitch four bite wounds to his leg. His colleague sustained a small laceration to his finger.

The XL bully was removed from the property alongside another dog which was in a crate in the kitchen at the time of the incident. Tests later confirmed this dog to be a pit bull terrier which is a banned breed within the UK. Both dogs currently remain in secure kennels.

Lawrence and Hollyoake, who was not home at the time of the incident and owns both the dogs, were later arrested and interviewed about the incident.

Lawrence suggested in interview that the dog had only attacked the officer as they were strangers in the house and denied the dog had acted dangerously. Hollyoake also denied the XL bully dog was dangerous and that he did not know that the pit bull was such a breed. He said he believed it was an XL bully. He had had the XL bully legally registered and microchipped but not the pit bull which he had owned for over a year.

Shanell Lawrence, 26, of Lewis Close, was charged with being in charge of a dog, namely a male of the XL Bully type, which was dangerously out of control and being in possession or custody a dog to which section 1 of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 applied, namely a female dog of the pit bull type.

Aden Hollyoake, 33, of no fixed abode, was charged with possession or custody of a dog to which section 1 of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 applied, namely a female dog of the pit-bull type.

Both pleaded guilty in September 2024 to all charges at Leicester Magistrates’ Court.

In November 2024, Lawrence was sentenced and given a 12-month community order. On January 31, at Leicester Crown Court, Hollyoake was sentenced to a total of two years and three months in prison.

Hollyoake’s sentence included separate convictions for offences of driving whilst disqualified, dangerous driving, driving without insurance and possession of a controlled drug which he previously pleaded guilty to.