A Rottweiler which escaped a destruction order because its owner sold it has been seized by police after a raid on her home.

Keisha was sentenced to death under the Dangerous Dogs Act in December last year.

Magistrates heard the animal mauled a boy of 11, months after being put under a lifetime contingency destruction order for biting a ten-year-old girl and her mother.

But before Keisha could be put down, owner Jay Clarke, 42, told a court she had sold her.

A loophole in the law means once ownership is transferred the destruction order is invalid. Magistrates were forced to withdraw the sentence.

Officers raided Mrs Clarke's home in Black Dog Walk, Crawley, and seized three Rottweilers.

One has since been identified from a microchip as being Keisha.

Now the mother of one of the animal's victims is calling for police to finally have the dog destroyed.

The woman, who asked not to be named, said: "If just one child had been bitten, I can understand how it could be given another chance but now this dog has attacked three people.

"If it had been put down after the first attack, my son would not have been put through such a dreadful ordeal."

A police spokesman said Keisha was now in police care while further inquiries were made.

When the destruction order was made at a court hearing in December, Mrs Clarke said she had sold Keisha two weeks before.

Mrs Clarke's lawyer told the court it no longer had the power to make the order and would have to pursue the new owner.

Magistrates said the court proceedings had been "a waste of time".