What a cruel coincidence that Sue Brown, the teacher who 15 years ago rushed to the Bradford hospital bedside of Rucksana Khan after the six-year-old was almost killed in a dog attack, should herself now have been badly bitten by a rottweiler she had the misfortune to encounter in Heaton Woods.

It is yet another indictment of The Dangerous Dogs Act 1991, which was rushed through after the attack on Rucksana, that large and potentially dangerous dogs of this type can still be allowed to roam freely, off the lead, in public places.

Marsha Singh MP is right when he points out that the Act (which was well-meant) was introduced as a knee-jerk reaction in response to the public outcry following the Bradford attack. It was a too-rapid response to this terrible mauling, which came in the wake of several other well-publicised cases around the same time.

Like other laws which have been produced in haste, it has subsequently proved to be flawed. It covers certain breeds considered to be particularly dangerous, requires dogs to be kept under proper control, and insists that types of dogs produced initially for fighting should not be allowed in public without being muzzled and kept on a lead.

Bradford dog warden Terry Singh would like to see it re-drawn to cover all dogs. Most right-thinking people surely will agree with that. It soon became clear that the 1991 Act was full of holes. Fifteen years on, it is well past time for it to be repaired so that it can properly protect the public before another child is seriously injured or even killed.