A BOY seeking scrap for a go-kart was savaged by a guard dog while his brother and their friend could only look on in horror.

Twelve-year-old Andrew Peacock, from St Helen Auckland, had visited a scrapyard near his home with older brother, Gareth, and friend, Stephen Morris, to ask for wheels for a kart.

However, the trip took a horrific turn when a guard dog raced past the two older children and mauled the youngster, leaving him with appalling injuries.

Andrew stayed as still as possible to try to avoid being attacked, but was knocked into a ditch as the bull mastiff jumped on top of him, flinging him about like a rag doll.

The dog bit his arm through to the bone, crushed his wrist by biting through to the bone, and left deep bite marks on his chest.

Medical experts told Andrew's parents that he will always have restricted movement in his wrist, which will also be prone to infection for the rest of his life.

His father, Kevin Peacock, said: "We didn't realise how bad he was until they took him to hospital. They had to cut his jumper off, there was blood all over it.

"If the security guard hadn't hauled the dog off him, he might have been killed.

"There were two surgeons working on him. They said they'd never seen anything like it."

However, this is not the first time that the dog has attacked.

Last year, the bull mastiff escaped through a hole in the fence of Tomlinsons scrap yard and attacked another youngster.

Managing director of Tomlinsons, Dorothy Clayton, said they did not hesitate in putting the dog down after the latest incident and were "devastated" by the attack.

She said the dog was there to protect a night watchman, who was badly beaten up by trespassers about four years ago.

"All of us here are very, very upset and trying to support the parents as much as we can. This is dreadful for them," she said.

"He was supposed to be on a leash all the time and kept in a pen. Children would always pelt it with sticks and stones from the boundary. On Saturday afternoon, it got out of the pen.

"That doesn't excuse what happened."