A terrified child suffered the ordeal of being attacked by a vicious seagull.

The savage bird pecked at the four-year-old girl’s head until her mum and a man with a walking stick beat it off.

Little Kara Bailey was first set upon in Biggin Street, Dover.

Mum Michaela Gruncell said: “The gull landed on her head twice and pecked it. She is now terrified and clings on to me when she sees seagulls swooping.”

The bird swooped on Kara outside the HSBC, pecked her, flew off and attacked her again at a distance of two shops further away.

Miss Gruncell punched the bird and a man also intervened, beating it with a walking stick.

The pecks on Kara did not draw blood but she was left with temporary indents on her head from the gull’s feet.

She was otherwise unhurt.

Miss Gruncell, 22, of North Military Road, Dover, now believes that the bird had dived in because of just a tiny piece of sandwich in her daughter’s hand.

The mum was particularly worried because she also had 11-month-old daughter Ariella in her pushchair, who had a biscuit.

She was totally unharmed, but Miss Gruncell believes that may have been because Kara was blocking the gull’s way to her.

She said: “I think the problem is that seagulls are getting more aggressive and that things are being made worse because people are feeding them.

“I see it in particular at Pencester Gardens. You get people scattering pieces of bread and the seagulls swarm.

"She is now terrified and clings on to me when she sees seagulls swooping" - Michaela Gruncell

“I never found out who the man who helped us was. He looked as if he was in his 60s but he never gave his name.

“But I think if he hadn’t beaten the gull with his walking stick it would have come back and attacked again instead of finally flying off. So I would like to thank him.”

People in the Dover district have regularly complained about aggressive seagulls, with many reports of them swooping down on people eating in the open air.

Last summer there were complaints of the birds diving down from the tops of telephone boxes in Deal to snatch food and terrifying little children.

Seagulls are a daily feature in coastal towns, but some go as far inland as Ashford town centre to scavenge for food.

They are also notorious for tearing up bin bags before rubbish collections, leading one Shepway councillor to ask two years ago that his authortiy bring in tough, gull-proof bags.