{"id":499861,"date":"2025-10-14T22:06:40","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T22:06:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/499861\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T22:06:40","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T22:06:40","slug":"owner-of-xl-bully-ghost-shot-dead-by-police-guilty-after-dog-wreaked-havoc-in-sheffield-street","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/499861\/","title":{"rendered":"Owner of XL Bully Ghost shot dead by police GUILTY after dog wreaked havoc in Sheffield street"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Sheffield woman argued police officers wrongfully shot her dog, Ghost\"GhostGhost was shot to death by police<\/p>\n

A Sheffield woman whose dangerously out of control dog wreaked havoc on a Sheffield street before being shot dead by police has been found guilty.<\/p>\n

Sophie Zaherali, 31, of Dykes Hall Road in Hillsborough in Sheffield<\/a>, has argued passionately that her XL Bully, Ghost, was friendly and not dangerous, and claimed South Yorkshire Police<\/a> officers wrongfully killed him when they shot the dog on Dunella Street<\/a> on Saturday, December 7.<\/p>\n

Armed officers raced to the scene after Ghost bit a woman and was running loose in the area<\/a>. He had also become aggressive towards a second person. Zaherali was nowhere to be seen.<\/p>\n

When the police arrived, the force said officers shot the dog after he ran towards them “to end and mitigate the risk it posed to the public”.<\/p>\n

After her dog was shot, Zaherali then posted photographs on social media “in an attempt to identify the firearms officer involved”. As a result, she was charged with sending by public communication network an offensive\/indecent\/obscene\/menacing message\/matter.<\/p>\n

Protesters gathered outside Snig Hill Police Station in Sheffield on January 4 over the shooting of Ghost in December<\/p>\n

At Sheffield Magistrates Court, Zaherali denied being the owner of a dog that was dangerously out of control-no injury but admitted the offence relating to the malicious communications about the police officer, who cannot be named for legal reasons.<\/p>\n

Firearms Inspector Steve Usher said: “Dogs are the responsibility of their owners, and they are the ones who will be held responsible for their animal\u2019s actions. Sadly, in South Yorkshire, our officers have witnessed and attempted to save the lives of people mauled by their own animals. Everyone\u2019s safety will always be our priority.”<\/p>\n

During a hearing yesterday at Sheffield Magistrates\u2019 Court, Zaherali pleaded guilty to the public communication offence and was found guilty by the court of being the owner of a dog dangerously out of control- no injury.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the force said: “The decision to shoot a dog is one never taken lightly by our officers. They are highly trained and carry out risk assessments, and observations of the tactics available to them and the situation they are in.<\/p>\n

“Our aim will always be to safely contain any animal, but the safety of the community and officers is always our priority.”<\/p>\n

Zaherali will appear before the same court on December 16 for sentencing.<\/p>\n

Get all the latest and breaking Sheffield news straight to your inbox by <\/strong>signing up to our newsletter here.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Sheffield woman argued police officers wrongfully shot her dog, GhostGhost was shot to death by police A…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":499862,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8817],"tags":[748,188,393,4884,1620,59157,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-499861","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sheffield","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-crime","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-sheffield","13":"tag-south-yorkshire-police","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115374797412254746","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=499861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/499862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=499861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=499861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=499861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}