“Every time I shut my eyes” Jack Lis’ mother speaks of distressing last image of her son

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The mother of Jack Lis, the ten-year-old boy killed in a dog attack, has spoken about the final image of him.

Speaking on BBC’s Panorama, Jack Lis’s mother Emma Whitfield said: “Every time I shut my eyes I try and tell myself that’s not the last image I’ve got of him.

“I try and tell myself it was when he shut the door with his skateboard in his hands but that’s not true.”

Ten-year-old Jack Lis was killed on November 8 following a dog attack at a friend’s house on Pentwyn, Penyrheol.

The Cwm Ifor Primary School pupil had gone to a friend’s house after school and was killed by an XL American Bully called Beast, which was shot dead by firearms officers after the attack.

Amy Salter, 29, of Llanfabon Drive, Trethomas, and Brandon Hayden, 19, of Pen y Bryn in Penyrheol, were jailed at Cardiff Crown Court last year for their part in Jack’s death.

Hayden was sentenced to four and a half years at a young offender’s institution. He pleaded guilty to owning a dog dangerously out of control causing injury resulting in death.

Meanwhile, Salter was handed a three-year jail term. She pleaded guilty to being in control of a dog dangerously out of control causing injury resulting in death.

Speaking to BBC Panorama, Ms Whitfield said the dog had attacked Jack’s face and neck.

“They kept saying they’re working on him, they’re working on him and then the paramedic came back with a blanket and I knew,” she said.

“I can’t say out loud what else I saw because I don’t want other people to have to picture it either.”

Ms Whitfield spoke to Panorama as part of its investigation into how organised crime is moving into the world of extreme dog breeding.

Panorama’s Dogs, Dealers and Organised Crime is on BBC iPlayer and BBC One Wales at 10.40pm tonight, Monday January 23.

Change in the law needed

Caerphilly’s Member of Parliament Wayne David last week told Prime Minister Rishi Sunak the Dangerous Dogs Act was “woefully inadequate”.

Labour MP Wayne David raised the issue in Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, following the dog attack deaths of Jack Lis, and, last month, Shirley Patrick, 83.

The Labour MP said: “The Government has commissioned studies and debated the subject at length, but they have done nothing. My question is: when will the Government take action on the issue of dangerous dogs?”

Mr David recently called for radical changes in the way people own, breed, and sell dogs are needed in the UK.

Speaking to Caerphilly Observer following Ms Patrick’s death, Mr David said: “I am determined to now press home the need for a fundamental change to how we approach the issue of dangerous dogs.