A drunken teenager who was said to have "growled like an animal'' as he bit into a police dog's neck has been put on probation for two years.

Bradford magistrates were told Mark Binns wanted to get even with the Alsatian after it bit him on the arm.

Gripping it with both hands, he sank his teeth into the dog for several minutes as police officers tried to pull him off. He clung to the yelping animal despite being kicked and hit several times with a baton.

One of the officers squirted him with CS gas and the dog was finally pulled clear.

Binns, now 20, of Torre Hill, Burmantofts, Leeds, was convicted in his absence on charges of obstructing the police and causing unnecessary suffering to an animal. He had earlier pleaded guilty to a charge of criminal damage.

Dog handler PC Kevin Taylor told the court the dog was squealing in agony and Binns was growling like an animal.

"I thought its throat was being ripped out, at the time,'' he said. "I have never seen anything like this in my life.''

Binns had called the police himself after leaving a Bradford nightclub and realising he was locked out of his mother's Bradford home. He broke into a launderette, looking for somewhere to bed down, when he was found by officers.

He told police he had drunk more than ten pints.

Defence solicitor Paul Jacobson said Binns had reacted instinctively by grabbing the dog because it was "effectively savaging him.''