BY CHARLES HESLETT

A five-year-old girl was savaged by a giant Bull Mastiff and left with horrific bite wounds to her fractured skull after being attacked while she played with friends.

Chelsea Serrant was due to go into surgery today to have deep tears in the back of her head cleaned and stitched following the terrifying attack.

Her mother Donna, 26, was at her bedside at Bradford Royal Infirmary today.

She told how she was in the kitchen of her house, in Withins Close, in Little Horton, Bradford, around 4pm yesterday when her son, Paul, came running into the house screaming that his little sister was being attacked.

The two of them had been playing with five friends in a field at the back of Withins Close when a Bull Mastiff dog pounced on the unsuspecting youngster.

Mrs Serrant said: "They were playing football and the dog just came down and dived on Chelsea.

"It just pounded into her and grabbed her head between its jaws and started shaking her about. My boyfriend Shane Karim ran out and got the animal off her.

"She was just covered in blood and you could put your fingers into her wounds, they were so deep. She just kept saying, 'Mummy, mummy, my head'."

Chelsea was taken to hospital where doctors put her through a CT scan to check the damage to her skull.

Mrs Serrant, who only moved into the cul-de-sac last Friday with her three young children, said her daughter had suffered a fractured skull.

"The doctors said her hair, which is in ringlets and quite bushy, saved her from worse injury. If it had been a little boy with a short hairstyle it could have ripped his skull off.

"I'm just pleased it wasn't her face that the dog got hold off - I moved into a cul-de-sac because I thought it would be safer for my kids but obviously it wasn't."

After the first attack the Bull Mastiff, who had escaped from its owner's garden, attacked a seven-year-old girl in Withins Close, who suffered injuries to her hand and face.

The dog was put down last night after its owner volunteered to have it destroyed. Odsal police were due to investigate the incident today.

The owners of the Bull Mastiff refused to speak to the Telegraph & Argus when contacted them at home in Withens Close.

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