A mother is under arrest on suspicion of manslaughter after her 11-month-old daughter was mauled to death by a dog.
Ava Jayne Marie Corless was in bed at a house in Emily Street, Blackburn, at around 11pm yesterday when she was savaged by what police described as an American pitbull-type dog.
Police and ambulance staff attempted to resuscitate the girl but she was pronounced dead in hospital a short time later.
The girl's mother has been named locally as Chloe King and the man in custody, her current partner, was named as Lee Wright, who is not the father of the child.
Police have not confirmed the names of those under arrest.
They were downstairs when the attack took place, police said.
Locals claim to have made previous complaints about the dog's behaviour to police.
Chief Superintendent Chris Bithell of Lancashire Police said: "This is an absolutely horrific incident in which a baby girl has lost her life and I would like to take this opportunity to express my own personal sympathy to the wider family of baby Ava."
Mr Bithell said police were first alerted by the ambulance service who were called to reports of the girl being mauled by a pet dog.
A post mortem will take place to find out the exact cause of death.
Mr Bithell added: "The dog is believed to be an American Pit Bull type, it has been destroyed and tests will be carried out today to establish the exact breed of the dog and inquiries into the history of the animal.
"I'm told its quite a large pit bull type dog."
Both suspects were initially arrested on suspicion of child neglect, before being re-arrested this morning on the more serious charge of manslaughter and will be questioned by detectives today, Mr Bithell said.
"The lady in custody is the baby's mother and the male in custody is the mother's current boyfriend," he added.
"The baby was upstairs in a bed in one of the front bedrooms and the two people who are currently in custody, they were downstairs when the attack took place."
Asked about claims from neighbours reporting dangerous dogs at the address he added: "As part of the investigation we are making inquiries to see whether there have been previous issues with this particular dog and I think at this moment it would be too early to speculate on that."
Tributes were paid to the baby girl on Facebook.
Catt Allen wrote: "RIP Ava-Jayne heaven has gained another angel sleep tight beautiful girl xxxx".
Jodii-Rebekah Doran added: "RIP Ava-Jayne. Heaven has gained a beautiful angel xxx".
Derek Turner posted: "Absolute tragedy ! R I P Little angel xx".
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article