John McColl died aged 84 after being ‘savaged’ by Sean Garner’s seven stone pet, who had to be shot 10 times by police
John McColl died aged 84 after being ‘savaged’ by Sean Garner’s seven stone pet, who had to be shot 10 times by police
Family members warned an alleged XL bully breeder to tell police that he was minding his dog on behalf of a friend who had travelled to Thailand after it “savaged” and killed a pensioner, a trial has heard. John McColl died aged 84 after being mauled by the canine, who weighed in at more than seven stone and had to be shot 10 times by firearms officers.
It came after the seemingly “confused” OAP mistakenly entered the driveway of alleged “irresponsible” owner Sean Garner’s then home on Bardsley Avenue in Warrington while on his way home from the pub. Neighbours attempted to stave off the attack using a brush, a golf club and a spirit level but to no avail as the banned breed, named Toretto, “guarded” the elderly victim “as if he were its prey or its food”.
Garner, now of Dinaro Close in Belle Vale, was meanwhile said to have “made jokes while doctors were valiantly trying to save Mr McColl’s life,” having earlier described his pet as “missing a few nuts and bolts”. The 31-year-old is currently on trial at Liverpool Crown Court accused of causing Mr McColl’s death by being the owner of a dangerously out of control dog.
Jurors were today shown a series of messages concerning the dog which had been exchanged between Garner and his family. On one occasion, in March 2024, his mum told him: “No, he only caught me last time. I was ready this time. He gets so excited. Always had something for him, so he calmed down.”
Garner then replied “yeah, defo missing a few nuts and bolts like, isn’t he?”. When his mother stated that the dog had “got a big stick and ravished it”, he added: “Yeah, he gets too obsessed with s*** like that. Why I know he’d fight with Malibu. Over a stick or something daft like that.”
Having described Malibu, his other XL bully, as a “boss dog”, Garner said of her: “Deserves a good life inside. To on the other hand needs to stop being a stink ha ha ha.”
Turning to the day of the attack, the court was shown CCTV footage of Garner leaving his home, which he and his girlfriend had moved into three weeks earlier on February 3, 2025, in a green flatbed truck shortly before 4pm while transporting a red Range Rover-style car on the back of the vehicle. At around 7.45pm the same day, this truck was seen on ANPR cameras in the Speke area when he was called by police and informed of a “really serious” incident involving the dogs.
His partner Lauren Lawler and her mum then made a series of attempted calls to Garner before he spoke to the latter for 37 seconds and one minute and nine seconds at 7.53pm and 7.54pm respectively. He then called his own mother for 20 seconds at 7.56pm before sending a voice note to a WhatsApp group, named “Fambo”, at 7.57pm.
Garner was heard to say in this message: “Get my mum to phone me, anyone in the chat, ASAP. There’s all police at my house over the f***ing dogs, saying I’ve got an hour to get back, saying they’ve been involved in a serious incident. Don’t know what the f***s happened.”
Within minutes, a contact named “R Steph” was thereafter seen to reply to the same group chat: “Oh s***. Was she locked in the house?”
His mum Maureen Garner meanwhile messaged him directly at 8.05pm and told him: “Say they’re Lauren’s dogs. She’ll get off with a fine and you’ll go back to jail.”
Garner was subsequently seen driving along the M62 before meeting Ms Lawler at Junction Nine Retail Park, located within “walking distance” of their house. Their vehicles were shown parked alongside one another between a Nando’s restaurant and a branch of Pizza Hut between 8.21pm and 8.25pm before the defendant’s girlfriend drove to the scene of the attack in her Ford Puma car.
Having travelled towards the same area himself, but not ultimately returned to the address, Garner went on to message his mother-in-law via Facebook at 8.32pm saying: “There’s police everywhere. Road closed.”
It came after “R Steph” sent further messages to the “Fambo” WhatsApp group at 8.23pm, telling Garner: “Let me know if you need me to do anything. I’d say you’re minding whatever dogs done it for your mate who’s gone Thailand. Don’t know who you would say though.”
A vet who examined Toretto after he was shot dead found that he weighed 7st 4lb and “noted that the dog’s ears had been cropped”, an illegal practice which was described as “a mutilation” and “of no benefit to the dog”. A necropsy thereafter found “numerous fragments of human remains” and “small bits of plastic” in the XL bully’s stomach, with the practitioner having “not observed any dog food in the stomach”.
David Birrell, prosecuting, earlier told the jury of eight men and four women that Mr McColl had “for some reason, wandered into the defendant’s driveway” at around 6pm on February 24 last year. He added in his opening: “We will never know why he did it. Perhaps he was confused. He had been to the pub, although he had not had very much to drink. We will never know.
“What we do know is that, after he entered the defendant’s driveway, the dog attacked him, and it just would not let him go. People tried to help him, grown men with weapons, hitting the dog. But it was no use. The dog would not let him go. The dog guarded him as if he were its prey. It savaged him.
“The police were called, and they arrived on the scene quickly. But the first police officers, who were unarmed, could not get to Mr McColl. Firearms officers came with guns. They had to shoot the dog. They had to shoot it 10 times.”
Mr Birrell detailed how one officer was required to shoot the XL Bully nine times with a pistol while another blasted the “large, savage dog” with a shotgun. PCs thereafter also shot dead a second, female XL Bully which was found on the property so as to “not to take any chances”.
Meanwhile, Mr McColl was rushed to hospital but died a month later from his injuries.
Police reportedly attempted to contact Garner and asked him to return home during a phone call, but he was instead said to have “avoided police” as family members messaged him “advising him to lie”. Mr Birrell added of these texts: “He made light of the situation. He was making jokes while doctors were valiantly trying to save John McColl’s life. He avoided the police for two days before he handed himself in.”
Garner, who appeared suited in the dock, was then said to have “lied” under interview, having claimed that the dog had “never shown any sign of aggression”, although Toretto was evidenced to have fought with the other XL Bully, Malibu, and injured the defendant’s mother previously. He also claimed that the dog was not an XL Bully, although he “now admits that”.
Mr Birrell said: “In this trial, he is likely to tell you more lies. He is likely to claim that he kept the dog in a tool shed or something like that. We will hear evidence from a neighbour and from a police dog expert, who tells us that the dog was not kept in a tool shed but was kept on a patio. It was covered in dog faeces, dog poo. All there was keeping the dog on that patio was a metal gate with a latch.”
While Garner claimed under interview that the gate was “locked with a bolt”, Mr Birrell told the court: “There was no bolt, just that latch that we can see. We say that this dog, this large, powerful dog, could very easily have pawed that latch. We say that is probably what happened.
“However the dog got out, after it got out, it was dangerously out of control. And, whilst it was dangerously out of control, it attacked and it killed Mr McColl, and we say that the defendant is responsible.
“He is responsible because he kept the dog when he knew it was dangerous. He knew that it had fought with other dogs and hurt people. We will see text messages where he said that it was ‘missing a few nuts and bolts’, and yet he kept it.
“He is responsible because he did not feed the dog properly. A police dog expert will tell us that the dog had not been fed for some time. There was no food in its stomach. The expert will tell us that, if dogs are left hungry, then they can become irritable and aggressive. The expert will tell us that the dog appeared to be guarding Mr McColl as if he were its prey or its food.
“We say that he was an irresponsible dog owner. He did not have an exemption certificate for the dog. He did not have a certificate for the other XL Bully either. Despite that, he was breeding these dogs. He was breeding more illegal XL bullies to make money. Irresponsible, we say, reckless.
“In this trial, he might try to argue that Mr McColl was somehow to blame for entering his driveway. There is no doubt that John McColl entered his driveway. That does not excuse what happened. It does not absolve him of responsibility.
“All sorts of people might enter your driveway. Postmen, Amazon delivery drivers, political canvassers, children chasing balls. The possibilities are endless. But it is not acceptable for your dog to attack someone and to kill them just because they enter your driveway.
“The defendant admits he was the owner of the dog. He admits that the dog was dangerously out of control, and he admits that the dog injured John McColl, and John McColl died as a result of his injuries, but he denies that he is responsible. He says that is not his fault, not at all, not in the slightest. He says, and his case is, that he took reasonable steps to keep the dog under control. That is his case, and that is what you have to decide in this trial.”
Garner, who is represented by Lloyd Morgan, denies being the owner of a dog which caused injury while dangerously out of control, having pleaded guilty to two counts of possession of a dog of a banned breed without an exemption certificate. The trial, before Brian Cummings KC, continues.
