A nine-year-old boy has been scarred for life after a childminder's dog savaged his face.

The attack happened when Thomas Pritchard, his two-year-old brother Alfie and mother Maretta Jackson, 32, were visiting Deborah Stephens to decide whether she would make a suitable carer.

Miss Jackson, who was discussing rates with Mrs Stephens at her home in Stanmer Villas, Brighton, said: "I said I'd better go and see where Thomas was and went through to the next room. He was opening the door to where the dog was shut away.

"I just heard a growl and then saw Thomas walking towards me, covered in blood.

"She shut the dog away but didn't lock the door. Thomas is a very loving child who has been around dogs all his life.

"He went in there to say goodbye to the dog and kiss it on the head but it snapped."

Mrs Stephens drove Miss Jackson and Thomas to the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Eastern Road, Brighton, where he spent three hours in casualty having five stitches in his lip and five in his cheek.

Later he was sent to the Royal Alexandra children's hospital in Dyke Road, Brighton, where he spent two days recovering. Miss Jackson, from Brighton, said: "He's got a bruise on his neck from the bite and the nurses at accident and emergency said if he had been bitten there he would have died."

She is calling for the dog to be destroyed.

Thomas said: "I think the dog should be put down.

"It was a really big dog and I'm not used to big dogs. I only went near him because he looked really cute but I don't like big dogs now."

Mrs Stephens said she put the dog, a three-year-old grey Weimaraner, in another room to keep it away from the child.

She said Thomas had been warned not to go into the room but he ran in there anyway.

She said: "I put the dog in the room because the older child was too much for me to handle and I knew he would be more than the dog could handle."

She said Thomas ran into the room with younger brother and lay across the dog, kissing it.

Mrs Stephens said the dog had spent its whole life around children, was used to being played with and had never bitten anybody before.

She said she would rather give the dog away than see it destroyed.