A DOG responsible for several attacks on residents has been removed from a house in Blackburn.

Neighbourhood officers and police dog handlers raided a terraced house in Ivy Street, Infirmary, this afternoon.

The Staffordshire Bull terrier, called Bruce, was home alone and had run upstairs into a bedroom.

Dog handlers went in through the back door, restrained the dog with an electric shield and put it into a cage.

Officers were acting on reports of the dog being left to ‘roam’ the streets and attacking people at random, drawing blood.

Steven McNeil, 40, of nearby Dyson Street, said the problem had been going on for six months.

He said: “We’ve had a couple of run-ins with the owner who, when drunk, walks round with his dog off the lead. He hasn’t got any respect for the public.

“It has attacked a couple of people at the betting shop.

"My friend’s young daughter cannot play out in her back yard because of the dog jumping up at her over the fence.”

A resident in Ivy Street said: “It has bitten four people that I know about, including a workman.

“It gets let out at 4am until 6am to roam the streets and leaves dead cats lying in the alleyways.”

The site manager at housing regeneration project Infirmary Street Phase Four confirmed a scaffolder had been bitten on the leg two weeks ago and had contacted police.

PC Chris Hammill, of the south west neighbourhood police team, said: “We have had two reports of this dog biting members of the public, attacking them in the street.

“So we have executed a warrant today to take the dog off the street.”

The owner, who is in his 50s, was not home.