Second day of contested hearing over Winchelsea dog attack

Footage showing the moment two police officers saved a Winchelsea woman from a vicious dog attack has been played to a court.

More than one set of allegedly dangerous dogs lived on Trebeck Court in Winchelsea, a court has heard.

Swabs were taken from the mouths of two dogs that allegedly savagely mauled a Winchelsea woman, but the samples were never tested for DNA, a court has heard as the men accused over the attack deny the offending animals were theirs.

Phophinder and Dion Shergill appeared in the Geelong Magistrates Court on Monday for the second day of a contested hearing.

Surf Coast Shire alleges two dogs owned by the father and son duo viciously mauled a woman in Trebeck Court, Winchelsea, in the early hours of May 9 last year. She was hospitalised for weeks and underwent multiple surgeries.

Magistrate Ann McGarvie adjourned the matter following Monday’s proceedings and will hand down her decision on June 19.

Phophinder Shergill. Picture: Facebook

Dion Shergill has been represented by barrister Gordon Chisholm across the two-day hearing, while his father represented himself and prosecutor Raoul Stransky represented Surf Coast Shire.

Leading senior constable Trent Mellington, took to the witness box on Monday morning, taking the court through the moments he and leading senior constable Shayne McTigue arrived at the scene.

Body-worn camera footage of the incident, played to the court, showed the officers placing the victim in their vehicle, with her pained breathing audible as dogs barked nearby.

The officers took the victim to a nearby service station where she was collected by an ambulance.

In the footage, the officers identified the dogs as coming from the Shergills’ property.

Mr Chisholm grilled Constable Mellington on differences between his statement and his recollections in court.

Constable Mellington at one point disagreed with how Mr Chisholm interpreted his statement, and told the court he recognised the dogs.

Dion Shergill. Picture: Facebook

“I was clear the moment I saw them … from my previous attendance at the (Shergills’) address,” Constable Mellington said.

The court also heard evidence from Bradley Potts, a detective attached to the Geelong Criminal Investigation Unit (CIU).

Body-worn camera footage of investigators speaking with the Shergills on the morning of the attack was played to the court.

The court heard one of the dogs was fitted with a shock collar that prevented her from leaving the perimeter of the property, which was “functioning to a point”, Detective Potts said.

Detective Potts also gave evidence that he took swabs from the dogs’ mouths after they had been impounded, which would have indicated if the victim’s DNA was present.

But the swabs were never analysed, the court heard.

Once the victim’s condition stabilised, it was decided no criminal offence had occurred and the case was handed to Surf Coast Shire.

Later, a defence witness – a neighbour of the Shergills – told the court she believed the dogs that attacked the victim were a pair of bull mastiffs from a different property on Trebeck Court.

The witness told the court the Shergills’ dogs had never been aggressive towards her or her family, but there was an incident involving the mastiffs and her son, and they were “always killing something”.

She said on the morning of the attack, she saw the mastiffs being driven away in a ute past police with unusually “clean faces”.

The witness said the owners of the mastiffs decided to build a “massive dog enclosure” after May 9.

“I don’t doubt (the victim) was attacked … I don’t believe it was the two dogs that she thinks,” the witness said under cross-examination.

In his final submissions, Mr Chisholm raised the “danger of confirmation bias” and criticised the Surf Coast Shire for running a “woeful investigation”.

He argued the shire had not looked into any other dogs but the Shergills’, which he described and as a “failure of the nature of the investigation”.

In response, Mr Stransky accused Mr Chisholm of trying to “murky the waters of identification”.

He said that three people – the victim and constables McTigue and Mellington – had all positively identified the Shergills’ dogs as being responsible “in the first instance” knowing the dogs and having interacted with the dogs.

“It’s not a belief, it’s a clear identification,” Mr Stransky said.

Mr Stransky told Ms McGarvie to disregard the neighbour’s evidence, stating she had “an axe to grind of some nature” with the owners of the mastiffs.

Originally published as Second day of contested hearing over Winchelsea dog attack