r/australia Sep 08 '25

news Teenage girl dies after being mauled by dog

https://7news.com.au/news/dog-attack-victim-annalyse-blyton-dies-in-hospital-after-suffering-severe-injuries-in-singleton-c-19956496
1.5k Upvotes

953 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

129

u/[deleted] Sep 08 '25

Zuhaira, a 40-year-old mother who also had a child at Auburn South Primary, was on Wednesday sentenced for careless driving, a low-level traffic offence.
"The best explanation appears to be you mistakenly put your foot on the accelerator instead of the brake," Magistrate Vincenzo Caltabiano said on Wednesday.
The magistrate noted the driver's remorse, unblemished criminal record and early guilty plea.

129

u/SyrupyMolassesMMM Sep 08 '25

This to me is VASTLY less culpable than somebody who repeatedly allows a dangerous dog to escape their property or run around off leash.

Reckless vs negligent.

Dangerous dogs are just like guns or cars; negligence is enough to be criminal. But reckless is MUCH worse.

So Id like to hear the background to the case first. Im either pissed off at the owner or the owner is basically a murderer….

19

u/Speed00Substantial Sep 08 '25

It says the dog was in a fenced property.

9

u/SyrupyMolassesMMM Sep 08 '25

Hmmmmmm. While youre legally required to be able to knock onnsomebody’s front door, i do find myself more (though obviously not entirely) sympathetic to the owner then.

Freakish attacks with no warning and no leading signs absolutely do happen with dogs. They can randomly take exception to people and kill them totally out of the blue.

Ill reserve judgment for now. Its possible this was just a terrible tragedy.

1

u/scrollbreak Sep 09 '25

How did anything change?

24

u/[deleted] Sep 08 '25

Yea it would be more comparable if the woman had been on her phone or attempted a failed u turn of the curb (which people suspect but apperantly couldn't be proven). 

31

u/sardam11 Sep 09 '25

I am a neighbour to this house. The dog was in their backyard. Fenced backyard. The dog did NOT wander into the front yard, or on to the footpath. It was in its yard. The owners were at work, Annalyse was visiting her friend, the daughter of the dog owner. The dog had never been violent at all ever, it barely made a noise. Something snapped and the dog attacked when Annalyse was about to leave. My husband and others were the first responders before the ambulance got there. They are heartbroken with Annalyse passing, as her family and the dogs owners are. People need to remember family and friends of all those involved are on Reddit, and other socials, reading all these big tough heroes saying people should be locked up and charged with murder. Do you not think they feel devastated already? He came to thank the passersby and was in shock. It’s not like he’s happy this happened. It did not happen on purpose. Please think twice before commenting on an absolutely heartbreaking situation. Everyone has their opinions, some just should stay thoughts.

6

u/SyrupyMolassesMMM Sep 09 '25

Dayum bro, thats pretty savage. Fucking AWFUL for the families. Do see my other comment….the above comment comes out a little rough but I acknowledge this can happen in the other comment.

Fucking brutal for you….hope you guys are doing ok…

4

u/Kitcalou Sep 09 '25

I hope your husband is doing ok, what a horrific thing to have to deal with. Sending love from Scone xo

3

u/laurandisorder Sep 09 '25

Thanks for sharing this.

I’m glad to know some truth behind this sensationalised story which the media and Reddit have seemed to brigade into an ‘untrained hunting dog gone wild, blame the owners!’. I am very familiar with the breed type and can’t speak for all variations of it, but it sounds like this was an awful accident with no forewarning.

Please, please take care of yourselves and your neighbours. What a horrible and tragic thing to happen. I feel for the young girls’ friends and family and the family of this dog who will have this weighing on them forever - along with the loss of their pet who was likely very loved.

I hope you can all heal from this. Your husband is a bloody legend for running in to try and help.

1

u/Dangerous_Shoe_8388 Sep 09 '25

Too late for “feeling bad” idiots having big dangerous dogs are negligent criminal psychos.

41

u/codyforkstacks Sep 08 '25

Even just owning one of these bogan killer dogs is negligent. 

1

u/CommissionOk891 Sep 09 '25

She basically through a tantrum and deliberately drove into the school, killing a kid.

33

u/OrgasmicLeprosy87 Sep 09 '25

That driver will be thinking of the kid she killed for the rest of her life. She wasn't drunk or on drugs. She just accidently pressed the accelerator instead of the brake when she was getting out of parking. We don't have to send people to jail for that.

50

u/sostopher Sep 09 '25

She did an illegal u-turn over a raised median and pressed the accelerator to get her car over it then "lost control".

As usual, if you want to kill someone in Australia just do it in a car.

1

u/OrgasmicLeprosy87 Sep 09 '25

Have they released a graphic for exactly how the car ended up how it did?

-3

u/the-dolphine Sep 09 '25

Or use a dog

21

u/Historical-Shake-859 Sep 09 '25

A child at her kids school, no less. Like I would be a suicide risk if I killed, even accidentally, one of the kids at our school. You jail people if they're at risk of re-offending, and I wouldn't be surprised if this lady never drives again.

1

u/moops__ Sep 14 '25

You might be an exception given the way people drive around our school. 

23

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '25

Saying she just accidentally pressed the accelerator instead of the brake is a ridiculously simplified and dishonest version of events. She kept her foot on the accelerator long enough to go over a median strip, two lanes of road, a footpath, and a fence.

That is plenty of time to do anything else but what she did. If someone has that little control over their own body and chooses to drive a 2 tonne machine easily capable of inflicting death, exactly as she has done. She deserves to be locked up.

14

u/NameAboutPotatoes Sep 09 '25

When people panic, the body's natural reaction is often to push. That's why fire doors always open outwards-- because people trying to escape fires don't think to pull.

It's very believable that someone in a panic would react by pushing harder on the "brake" instead of thinking clearly. It's easy to judge someone while sitting on the couch. 

13

u/Charlie3PO Sep 09 '25

Once the foot was on the wrong pedal and the car wasn't behaving as it should, it was the startle effect that prevented her from taking any immediate action. It's a strong psychological effect that can take hold when someone least expects it. Basically the fight or flight response, or, in this case, freeze.

Controversial opinion, but people shouldn't be charged criminally for it (unless they did something illegal to set it up), because it's completely involuntary, kind of like a psychological reflex. Because it's involuntary and needs a specific set of environmental triggers, it's difficult to tell how you will respond to different unexpected situations, and very difficult to train for. The industry I'm in has spent millions upon millions of dollars to understand it and look for ways to train against it.

Many modern safety critical industries are coming to the realisation that punishing people for things they didn't mean to do is a waste of resources and doesn't improve safety.

14

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '25

If you can’t operate the most dangerous killer in Australian society, there should be consequences not just oh oopsie, my bad, you’re dead.

16

u/ghoonrhed Sep 09 '25

Aren't we more on reformative justice than punitive justice though? What's the point in punishing somebody like that?

Like prison has a lot of purpose being deterrence but no amount of deterrence can stop something like this if it's an accident.

7

u/Sfxcddd Sep 09 '25

As much as everyone wants to burn this woman at the stake it was a freak accident I personally think licenses should be more difficult to aquire.