'I saw partner savaged by police dog'

Maxine Andrea Pursey, 36, claims Lawrence Agar, 35, suffered bite wounds before police officers sprayed him in the face with CS gas and knocked him to the floor.

Teesside County Court was told that Miss Pursey was forced to abandon two of her three boys - including a two-year-old - on the doorstep of her Middlesbrough home, when she was arrested with her partner, on Boxing Day in 1997.

The couple are suing the Chief Constable of Cleveland Police for damages, for assault, false imprisonment and malicious prosecution.

A jury was told that Mr Agar was bitten by police dog Bosco after violence erupted outside The Grove pub, on Middlesbrough's Easterside estate.

The pair claim that Mr Agar was the victim of an unprovoked attack by the Alsatian, which left him with an inch-deep wound on his right leg.

Miss Pursey told the court: "I was scared.

"Four policemen were on top of him and they had their knees in his back. I was just telling them to get the dog off him."

During the struggle, Miss Pursey claimed, she was knocked to the ground when a police officer punched her in the chest.

She told the court she was thrown in the back of a police van and despite urgent pleas to officers for someone to look after her two children, who at this point were standing on the doorstep of her home in nearby Gretton Avenue, officers refused to make sure the children were safe.

The court heard that Miss Pursey had undergone a course of medication for depression as a result of the events of that night.

The jury heard evidence from Mr Agar's sister, Tracey Lorraine Foster, that her brother was not a heavy drinker.

She told the court that she was very surprised to hear that he had drunk five or six pints that day.

Under cross examination, she said that he usually consumed only one or two pints at a time.

After legal argument yesterday, the hearing was adjourned until this morning, when the jury is expected to hear evidence from Bosco's handler, PC Mark Robson