A terrified schoolboy scaled a climbing frame to escape two snarling Rottweilers which attacked him as he played with friends.

The 12-year-old said the dogs grabbed him as he played with two children in a private Crawley garden.

One of his legs was so badly bitten it required plastic surgery, leaving him scarred for life.

Jay Clarke, 47, of Black Dog Walk, Northgate, Crawley, who owns the dogs, appeared before Haywards Heath magistrates yesterday accused of failing to keep proper control of one of the pets on July 15 last year. She denies the complaint.

The boy told the court the two dogs,China and Keisha, grabbed his sleeve as he got off the climbing frame to join the other children playing on tractors.

He said: "I tried to walk away and they let go but then they started to bite my legs. They were biting me hard. I was screaming."

The boy was saved when the Clarkes' 14-year-old son kicked the animals off and shouted for the boy to go up the climbing frame.

The youngster, who is too young to be named, said he was left to make his own way home and was later taken to the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead where he underwent surgery on two wounds.

The trial was adjourned and will be held at Crawley Magistrates Court on Monday.