On a chilly day in December 2017, an unpleasant incident unfolded at a sprawling estate called Moat Hall Farm near Knutsford in Cheshire.
Police had arrived after a neighbour called Adam Scott complained building work was taking place at the house, about which he was most unhappy.
That much, said police, was a civil matter. But things took a bizarre turn when the estate owner’s dog – a Labrador Shar Pei cross tethered to a 20-metre chain – pounced on PC Simon Banks, dragged him to the ground and sank its teeth into his thigh, leaving severe puncture wounds that required stitches.
It was a sorry and rather unusual business – and also, it emerged, only one part of the story.
For when the altercation ended in a Stockport court, the presiding magistrate heard something else: that the reason for this distressing confrontation came down to a bitter inheritance feud.
