A five-year-old girl was mauled to death by a dog at her home in northern England today, police said.
The dog, which police described as a "pit-bull terrier type dog" attacked Ellie Lawrenson and her grandmother in the early hours of the morning at a house in St Helen's near Liverpool.
The woman was seriously injured and is being treated in hospital, but the girl was fatally wounded in the attack.
The owner of the dog was warned about its behaviour just months before the attack, St Helens council said.
A spokeswoman for Merseyside police said dog handlers and armed response officers attended the scene and decided the dog should be destroyed immediately.
"This is such a tragic incident. When a child loses her life in such circumstances, it has an effect on the whole community," police superintendent Jon Ward said in a statement.
Last September, five-month-old Cadey-Lee Deacon died after she was savaged by her family's two Rottweilers in Leicester
