Sons discovered mom preventing for her life after XL Bullys mauling

The ‘devastated’ sons of a woman who was mauled to death by her XL Bullies found their mother fighting for her life when they dropped in to check on her.  

Angeline Mahal, 50, was attacked yesterday afternoon at her home in Hornchurch, east London, with armed police bearing riot shields called to deal with the animals.

She was found lying on the floor of the hallway by her two sons, who tried CPR and called an ambulance. It is feared she may have been dead for several hours already.

They were paying her one of their regular visits to check in on their mother and were seen outside the home looking distraught, with one in floods in tears.     

The Met Police has confirmed that two registered XL Bully dogs had been seized and taken away from the house. 

One neighbour told MailOnline the two sons stood outside the home as paramedics battled to save Ms Mahal’s life. 

They said: ‘The medics were working on her on the front driveway by the front door.

‘One of the sons was in tears but you could see they were both devastated. The woman lives on her own with the dogs but her sons come round and visit her regularly.

‘I’ve never seen the dogs being walked. I’ve not really seen them in the garden either. I hear them quite a bit in the house, they sometimes bark at night.

‘The woman who died has been renting the house for about two to three years.’

Photographs taken by MailOnline have today revealed a sign in one of the front windows at the home, which reads: ‘Never mind the dog, beware of the kids’.

A cordon can still be seen in place around the property, with police standing outside to monitor the situation as investigations continue. 

Despite the best efforts of paramedics and air ambulance crews who arrived shortly after the incident at 1.10pm yesterday, Ms Mahal was pronounced dead at the scene. 

Neighbours at the scene of the ‘awful’ attack were left shaken by the news yesterday.

One neighbour who lived opposite the house told MailOnline: ‘I never saw the dogs at all but once I had to knock at the house to retrieve a parcel and I heard them barking.

‘They sounded like big dogs, I was a little wary, but I didn’t see them.’

Another woman who lives a few doors away told MailOnline she saw medics working on the victim.

She said: ‘The first I knew that something was up was when I saw all the police cars and the ambulance parked on the corner.

‘I went out into the road and saw paramedics doing chest compressions on someone right by the front door of a house to the left of mine.

‘I asked a police officer what was going on and if we were safe because initially I thought this might be a stabbing.

‘The officer said we were safe but asked out of respect if I could go back into the house.

‘But a few hours later the police called round to the house and asked us to leave, they said we were now being evacuated for our own safety.

‘The whole close seemed like it was being evacuated. We all moved to the corner by the cordon.

‘About two hours later we were allowed back into our homes.

‘When I was told it was a tragic incident involving two XL Bully dogs I was shocked, my husband had been out in the garden early yesterday and didn’t hear anything out of the ordinary, no screaming or barking.

‘The lady who lived there was fairly quiet, I didn’t know her very well.’  

Photos taken at the quiet residential road on Monday night show a heavy police presence, with a cordon set up around the house where the attack took place and officers removing equipment including shields which were used to help secure the property.

Witnesses living nearby reported seeing half a dozen police vehicles arrive in the quiet residential cul-de-sac with their blue lights and sirens on, followed by ambulance and air ambulance crews.

One person told The Mirror that police had not killed the dogs involved, and had instead ‘taken them away’.

They said: ‘There’s been vans back and forth non-stop since lunchtime and we saw the helicopter come over and you assume the worst. 

‘Campion [a nearby school and sixth form college] isn’t far from here so you panic it’s kids or something. You never think a dog’s going to do that. It’s awful.’ 

One person wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, they had seen ‘half dozen police vehicles, blue lights and sirens, ambulance and air ambulance to Cornwall Close Hornchurch’.

The incident is thought to be the first fatal attack involving registered XL Bully dogs since fresh restrictions on the breed came into force on February 1.

Two days after the ban came into force Esther Martin, 68, was killed by XL bullies inside a property in Jaywick, Essex. Her daughter claimed the dogs were unregistered. 

Speaking about today’s incident, a spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police said: ‘A woman in her 50s has died after an incident inside a house in Hornchurch.

‘Police were called to Cornwall Close around 1.12pm on Monday, May 20, to reports of a woman attacked by a dog. 

‘The woman was treated by medics from London Ambulance Service, but sadly she was pronounced dead at the scene.

‘Due to the threat posed, armed officers attended. After assessing the situation, officers were able to safely seize two dogs.

‘These were registered XL Bully dogs and prior to officers’ arrival had been contained inside a room in the house. They did not leave the house at any time during the incident. 

‘The family of the woman, who was the owner of the dogs, are being supported by officers.’

A London Ambulance Service spokesperson said: ‘We were called at 1.09pm today (Monday 20) to reports of an incident in Cornwall Close, RM11.

‘We sent resources to the scene including ambulance crews, an incident response officer and London’s air ambulance.

‘We treated a person but sadly, despite our efforts, they were pronounced dead at the scene.’

The breed has developed a reputation in the UK for violence, with increasing numbers of reported dog attacks in Britain involving XL Bullys in recent years. 

Last month a woman in Scotland was ‘seriously hurt’ after a bully-type dog attacked her in the street.

In April the inquest into the death of a father-of-five who was mauled to death by an XL Bully he was looking after on behalf of a friend heard he had the ‘worst injuries a trauma doctor had ever seen’.

And earlier this month a mother and son who allowed their XL Bully to wander free were jailed after it savagely attacked an eight-year-old boy.

Amanda Young, 49, and her son Lewis, 30, were keeping the dog in their small flat in Bootle, Merseyside at the time of the attack in February this year.

Lewis a delivery driver, bought the dog from a Facebook advert but failed to check whether it was a banned breed after new legislation came in at the beginning of the year.

He left the dog, called Snoop, in his mother’s charge but she allowed it to wander around outside the flat, while she sat drinking.

During this time the dog attacked a boy who had been on his way to play football with a friend, grabbing him by the head and neck, and violently shaking him.

Horrified neighbours valiantly tried to get the dog, which was seen ‘frothing at the mouth’ off the youngster as it ripped off his scalp during the attack on February 10, this year.

One bite fractured and pierced his skull and doctors feared at first it could have pierced his brain. 

The boy was left with ‘significant and life-changing injuries’, with doctors warning he will have permanent scarring to his face and revealing that the viciousness of the attack meant they had been unable to re-attach his scalp and had to use skin grafts instead. 

Lewis Young was jailed for two years and his mother was locked away for 20 months, while the dog was destroyed.

This latest attack comes after new rules were introduced in England and Wales requiring all people who own XL Bully dogs to have an exemption certificate from February 1.

The law, which was criticised heavily by lovers of the breed, makes it a criminal offence to own, breed or sell the animals without permission, and those who have the exemption need to neuter their dogs and have third-party liability insurance.

Campaigners are challenging the Government’s decision to ban the breed, with a case set to go to the High Court later this year.

XL bully owner Sophie Coulthard and campaign group Don’t Ban Me, Licence Me are taking legal action against the Department for Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra) over the large bulldog-type American breed being added to a banned list under Dangerous Dog Act in October last year.

Campaigners argue that the ban is unlawful and irrational, claiming it was based on ‘unreliable’ material, lacked a ‘proper’ analysis over its impact and includes ‘vague’ standards that risked people unknowingly committing a criminal offence.

Government lawyers say the legal challenge should be dismissed and that campaigners’ arguments are ‘meritless’.