A schoolgirl needed more than 80 stitches after she was bitten on the face by a dog.

Joanne Stannard, 11, was in a shop when a bull mastiff bit her.

Her father, Neil, of Alvis Avenue, Jaywick, said: "I sent my daughter to get some bits and pieces and as she reached on to the counter to get them the dog jumped up and bit her on the face.

"I am angry the dog has not been put down."

Joanne, who was with her neighbour and his niece at the time, walked half-a-mile home and her father raised the alarm after the incident at a second-hand items store in Tamarisk Way, Jaywick.

Mr Stannard said: "I was devastated. I could see the muscle inside the mouth and a little bit of bone."

Joanne, who has a pet dog, Bruno, at home, was taken to Colchester General Hospital and then Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford, where she needed a total of 83 stitches and micro-surgery on her saliva duct.

She was given 40 internal stitches and 43 external stitches. She received plastic surgery and may need more.

Joanne was in hospital for five days and has not been back to Frobisher Primary School since the attack last month.

Joanne said she had seen the dog before and it had seemed all right.

"Two days before this I was stroking it and it was fine," she said.

The bull mastiff, named Mia, is owned by Noel Lee. His stepson Mark Pyke said the girl had leaned over the counter and ignored a warning sign telling people not to do so.

Sgt Steve Kettle, of Clacton police, said: "In the shop there's a counter and it's understood this girl leant across to the back of the counter quite legitimately and the dog leapt up."

He added the owner of the dog had been interviewed and the dog would now be muzzled.

Papers will be sent to the Crown Prosecution Service for it to decide whether anyone should be charged.

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