Dog walker Natasha Johnston horrifically mauled to death by giant pit bull she rescued only weeks before 

Dog walker Natasha Johnston horrifically mauled to death by giant pit bull she rescued only weeks before 

The dog is only a year old – barely more than a puppy – yet his muscled head is already twice the size of his female owner’s. Though his outsized jaws are clamped as he naps in her arms, their latent menace is unmistakable.

Nuzzling together, tender cheek by chestnut brown jowl, this is the first photograph of dog walker Natasha Johnston with Stan – the humungous bull terrier that savaged her to death in January, after turning on her as she exercised him in the Surrey countryside with seven other pets under her care.

The attack was so spontaneous and severe that it shocked the nation and brought calls for so-called ‘devil dogs’ to be banned by law.

Until now it has been reported that Stan was an XL bully, a dangerous and relatively new breed genetically programmed to be super-strong and aggressive, and, indeed, Natasha’s friends say she always presented him as such.

In one of many twists to this harrowing incident, however, veterinary surgeon Dr Alison Robson, an expert court witness called in to investigate the cause of Natasha’s death, says Stan was a pit bull – one of four breeds that are already illegal in Britain.

As such, 28-year-old Natasha ought never to have taken him out on that fateful day. That she allowed Stan to mingle with seven other dogs on the walk and let him off the lead unmuzzled in a public place – and a friend tells me he had already bitten her twice in the days before the fatal attack – was, says Dr Robson, a ‘recipe for disaster’.

Eight months on, the inquest into Natasha’s death has yet to be concluded. We still don’t know exactly why Stan set about her.

However, with the number of fatal or near-fatal dog attacks at crisis point (it emerged on Thursday that yet another man had been killed in Staffordshire) and the Home Secretary pressing for XL bullies to be added to the banned list, I have uncovered the full story.