08/05/2017 North West Tonight

A man has been charged tonight after a two-year-old girl was mauled

by dogs which got through a fence into her aunt's garden in Liverpool.

Two of the dogs known as American Bullies -

which are not a banned breed - have been destroyed.

The toddler is in a serious, but not life-threatening condition

The two-year-old girl was playing with cousins in the garden

of a relative's home when she was attacked

She was taken by air ambulance to Liverpool Alder Hey Hospital

after suffering injuries to her head and body

The little girl's aunt, who was looking after the children

for the afternoon, fought off the attack and ran to

Neighbours described hearing her scream,

Merseyside Police believe the dogs got into the garden

This man lives right next door to where the dogs were kept.

That's all you can say, really, it's shocking.

You've never had any problems with the dogs next door?

No, no problems at all with any of the dogs.

Did you know there were so many dogs next door to you?

No, I thought he had a few, that's all.

The animals were American Bully dogs, which are not a banned breed.

11 dogs were seized, including six puppies.

Owning a dog of that nature is not in itself an offence.

However, what is an offence is to have a dog that's dangerously

out of control in either a public place, and more recently the

legislation has changed so that if the offence

is committed in private, and that is the offence

which we are investigating at this moment in time.

Tonight, 35-year-old Andrew McGowan was charged with allowing four dogs

He'll appear before Liverpool and Mersey Magistrates' Court tomorrow.

A pregnant woman from Blackpool has been killed in a crash in Thailand.

Local reports in Phuket say Sophie Emma Rose

was a passenger on a motorbike, which swerved to avoid a parked car

The 41-year-old is thought to have been around six months pregnant.

The new inquest into the death of 13-month-old Poppi Worthington

The coroner has said it's due to a delay in granting legal aid

to the toddler's father, Paul Worthington.

A family court judge previously said Poppi was probably sexually abused

Mr Worthington has always strenuously denied it.

The former Rochdale MP Simon Danczuk has resigned from the Labour Party.

In a letter, he said the party was losing touch

Mr Danczuk was suspended by Labour last year for sending explicit texts

Meanwhile, Labour has selected Tony Lloyd to replace Mr Danczuk

as their candidate for the Rochdale seat in the forthcoming

Mr Lloyd has been Greater Manchester Police and Crime Commissioner and

And we'll bring you the names of all the candidates for the seat

Staying with politics, and the region's two

new metro mayors lost no time in getting down to work today.

We'll be hearing from Liverpool City Region mayor

First, our chief reporter Dave Guest was out early with Andy Burnham

in Greater Manchester,who's pledged to end

Getting up in the morning at 5:30am...

William says he was attacked on Saturday night.

I've always been a worker, I worked for 25 years.

This is Andy Burnham, Greater Manchester's

newly installed mayor, meeting homeless people this morning.

His office released these pictures as he launched his

What we will use it for is to create localised solutions in every

You put 15% of your salary into the fund, is that

That'll go in on a monthly basis for as long as I'm the mayor

What are you hoping the fund will achieve?

The end of rough sleeping in Greater Manchester by 2020.

Now, I'll be the first admit, that's quite an ambitious goal,

but this is urgent, people out there need the help right now.

Manchester City Council say those who want to help

But the mayor wants to ensure help's available to all throughout

The people out there are out there for many different reasons,

We should, in this day and age, in my view, be able to put a roof

over every head, every night of the week.

So, does William believe the mayor can make a difference?

You know, the only thing I can do is live in hope.

OK, so rough sleeping is at the top of your agenda at present,

but there's lots of other things you've got to address,

and what are you going to do over the next year?

What three things do you hope to achieve or change

There will be announcements on young people's travel,

Number two, changes with respect to the buses and public transport.

I'm going to get to work immediately, using the new powers

that I've got, to re-regulate the buses here in Greater Manchester.

The third issue that I think people want to see a lot of change

Of course, anyone starting a new job is going to be filled

with ideas and enthusiasm, and Greater Manchester's

But Andy Burnham will be judged very closely on just how

Along the M62, the North West's other new metro mayor -

Labour's Steve Rotheram - also started work today.

He officially took office in the Liverpool City Region.

The former bricklayer invited the Prime Minister

to come to Merseyside, and said he'd

Being mayor of the Liverpool City Region is a brand-new job.

Though today's ceremony looked traditional enough.

Steve Rotheram signed up at Wallasey Town Hall,

important symbolically for a mayor representing six boroughs

And straight off, a challenge to the PM.

Come and visit me in our City Region during the campaign,

so we can discuss real issues with real people.

And negotiate a better devolution deal for our area.

And who knows, if she comes, I might even buy her a bag of chips.

A children's signing choir was at today's inauguration,

but Labour are not singing from the same hymn sheet when it

comes to choosing Steve Rotheram's successor as Labour candidate

in the ultrasafe Walton Parliamentary seat.

When he announced that he wouldn't be standing again as a MP,

Steve Rotheram said it was a significant misjudgement

by Labour not to have a local voice on the panel selecting

And yet that's precisely what's happened.

Now, some in the local party in Walton fear that

Labour's national executive may impose a candidate on them.

An official from the Unite union, Dan Carden, is one name

The elected Mayor of Liverpool City, not the City Region,

sent off his application to be the candidate in Walton.

One thing we can't do is take for granted Labour

No matter where it is, Labour voters in Walton have been loyal

We asked people in Liverpool Walton if they would prefer

I would prefer someone from Liverpool, obviously,

but if they're proper Labour, I don't have a problem with that.

I'd like it to be from Liverpool, but as long as they're

The new metro mayor, meanwhile, believes he can

do more for Merseyside from here than from Westminster.

Cheshire rider Emily Gilruth has suffered what's being described

as a traumatic brain injury, after falling during

The 40-year-old fell from her horse Topwood Beau

during the cross-country stage on Saturday.

She remains under sedation in hospital.

Work's starting this week on a ?2 million flood defence

In recent years, homes and businesses around

Castletown Harbour have been flooded during winter storms.

A new boundary wall is being built to stop the water spilling

Manchester City's creating a haven for under threat wildlife. The

reserve will be bigger than the current one. It is hoped the writer

creatures will be contained there. -- a variety of creatures.

That's all from me, let's leave you with a look at the weather.

Good evening. A lot of fine and dry weather over the last couple of

weeks. We started off really well today, lots of sunshine around, and

when synthetic that great as well. The rain will return by Friday.

Patchy at first, per ticket holder through the weekend. The northerly

drift in the air has been chilly, and it becomes more northwesterly,

Celeste cold. Let until Friday as we get this whether creeping towards

us, and through the weekend there will be more of that. As we speak,

some breaks in the cloud cover, a 5050 split as we head into the

morning. Temperatures in towns and cities between five and 7 degrees.

Rurally, down to four. By the time we get up tomorrow, that cloud cover

will be thinning very nicely. The breeze is much lighter than today.

Into the afternoon, good, long spells of sunshine on offer.

Temperatures around 13 degrees, but could be higher. Enter tomorrow

night, quite warm all over, temperatures holding up. When is it

looking good again. Some patchy cloud around every now and again.

Similar story for Thursday, not too bad at all. The wind changing

direction again, 15 degrees is where we will be. Into Friday, the rain

comes towards us from this out. So some water for your garden. Through

the weekend, normal service resumed. will become drier and feel warm. Now

the National forecast. Good evening. A quiet day on the

weather front but we still managed to have some huge contrasts in the

weather. This was a beautiful picture from Cumbria, blue skies and

crystal clear blue skies in Argyll and Bute but closer to the north

coast, it sends shivers down your spine! Chilly and cloudy all along

that cost this bank of cloud that sliced the country in half, cool and

cloudy to the east and to the West had sunshine. But it still been dry

and it will stay that way for most of the week. As we get into Friday,

there is some rain on the way. In the short-term, not much happening

in the next few hours, quite a bit of cloud in most of England and

Wales but many northern and western parts, the stars are out.

Temperatures not