A carer has relived the horror of the moment she was savaged by three Pyrenean mountain dogs at the home of a woman she was looking after.

Paula O’Brien, from Ashford, received 69 bite wounds and was left with scars over her body during her terrifying ordeal.

She was left needing 49 stitches and underwent three operations, spending 24 days at the William Harvey Hospital in Ashford.

The dog owner, widow Tanya Green, claimed the animals had been “playing” and had just scratched the 59-year-old worker.

But a jury at Canterbury Crown Court rejected Green’s claims and convicted her of having dogs which were dangerously out of control.

Judge Rupert Lowe has ordered the destruction of the animals – which have been kept in kennels since the attack in March last year.

Green, 75, of Pluckley Road, Charing, was also banned from keeping dogs for the next 10 years and given a suspended jail sentence.

Mrs O’Brien, who lost her job after the incident, told how she had gone to visit Green as her carer.

“I knocked on the door and got no answer and I got worried and because the dogs hadn’t greeted me at the fence like they normally did. I thought they had been put away.

“They used to bark at me and I would say to them: ‘You should know me by now I have been coming here for six months - go on go away you are not having me for breakfast!’

“Thinking the dogs were in their pens, I thought I would go and see if the front door is open because Ms Green could have been on the floor dead.”

She found the three animals lying on the floor in the passage and when she saw them she ran towards the gate for protection.

“But I never got there before the male dog attacked me. I was screaming and screaming even though I knew the only person who could hear me was Mrs Green.

“And finally she came out. She called at the dog to stop but he didn’t and she laid across my body to stop the dog biting me.

“And that’s how she got bit, even though she claimed she had punched the dog in mouth. She didn’t.

"She grabbed the dog but because she is so weak she lost her grip and I was bitten again on the back of my leg as I ran back towards the house."

She added that she then kicked out and lost her boot before dragging her body to safety and calling for an ambulance.

After her hospital treatment, Mrs O'Brien was off work until November last year and then lost her job and has received no compensation for the incident.

Instead of showing empathy for her former carer, Green walked past her as she sat in the public gallery and muttered: “Don’t get mad - get even!”

Judge Rupert Lowe ruled “without hesitation” Green was not “ a fit and proper person” to own dogs and gave her a 10-year ban.

She was also given a 12-month jail sentence suspended for a year and Green asked: “Can I speak?”

The judge refused her permission, telling her that the dogs – one of which has since died from natural causes - had caused Mrs O’Brien “horrifying injuries caused during an appalling attack".

He issued destruction notices on the remaining two.