A mum has spoken of her terror as she fought to stop her eight-year-old daughter being mauled by a vicious loose Rottweiler in Bradford.

Shabana Kousar said she thought her daughter Seher was going to be killed in the attack, which saw a passing solicitor help to fight off the dog.

The child’s father, Amrez Akhtar, 30, said Mrs Kousar and Seher had been walking home from visiting family when they were cornered by the dog, which had been running free along Barkerend Road.

He said: “When they saw the dog they went behind a car to avoid it, but it followed them.

“The dog went straight for Seher and she started screaming. It bit her on the leg, which her mum didn’t realise at first. She was telling Seher to run away, but she couldn’t get up.”

Mrs Kousar, 32, of Browning Street, Barkerend, said she grabbed the dog and struggled with it for 20 minutes but was unable to free her daughter until two men stopped to help.

She was bitten on her arm as she tried to keep the dog at bay.

She said: “It was so scary, I can’t sleep, I close my eyes and all I can see is the dog’s face.

“I thought I was going to lose my daughter.”

Seher, a pupil at Byron Primary School, spent more than a week at Bradford Royal Infirmary undergoing surgery and has been left with a permanent scar.

Mr Akhtar said two passers-by stopped their car to help his daughter and wife.

“A man held him and another man got some rope and tied the dog up,” he said. “We are quite relieved to find the dog has been destroyed. I will be more relieved when the owner is found.”

Keighley solicitor Mohammed Hussain was one of those who leapt in to help. He said: “I was driving down Barkerend Road and I could hear screaming. I initially thought someone was beating up a woman. I looked across and a woman was lying on the floor. I looked closer and saw the dog was mauling something.

“By this time the dog was holding the child and was shaking her around like she was a toy.

“There were some men standing about and no-one was intervening.

“I thought if I didn’t intervene the child would end up dead.”

Mr Hussain, who owns Mohammed Hussain Solicitors, in Henry Street, said he hit the dog three times, on the neck, the head and the nose, before it let go of the girl. He was helped by a man who cut some washing line to tie the dog up before the police arrived.

Mr Hussain has been to visit Seher in hospital to see how she was recovering.

“At the time the adrenaline was running,” he said. “I have got an eight-year-old daughter of my own. The little girl was so brave. I thought, ‘there by the grace of God’.

“It was quite an experience for me.”

Mr Akhtar said the family has been badly affected by the attack: “As soon as it gets dark my daughter wants all the lights on and she doesn’t want to go out now. Her mother is getting flashbacks.”

Mrs Kousar said: “These sorts of dogs should always have someone with them or a muzzle over their face so if they run away they can’t attack a child. Thank God those men were there to help.”

Police are now appealing for the owner of the dog, which, the family was told, has been destroyed, to come forward.

Anyone who has any information about the incident, which happened in Barkerend Road, on February 6, at 5.45pm, is asked to contact the police, who are particularly keen to trace the dog’s owner.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Sergeant Jon Collins at the Bradford Moor, Bowling and Barkerend Neighbourhood Policing Team on (01274) 376625.