Deaf woman slept through five-hour gun siege

This is London
Jul. 23, 2007

After laying siege to a house for five hours, police gave a final warning before storming the house where a gunman had been reported inside.

A police dog rushed upstairs and, finding a woman in bed, proceeded to sink its teeth into her arms.

But as armed officers surrounded a terrified Sonia Pellow, they realised two things. First, she wasn't a gunman.

Second, she was deaf and had been sleeping throughout the entire stand-off.

Yesterday Miss Pellow, 36, was still too afraid to return to her home in Hayle, Cornwall, after the ordeal, which followed a hoax call to police that a gunman was inside.

"I don't know what happened - I was asleep but then this dog was all over me," she said. "I got bitten on both of my arms. I was terrified."

Her father Esmond, 67, added: "Sonia is hard of hearing and is also very difficult to wake up once she is asleep. It looks like she was attacked by a crocodile, not a dog."

Miss Pellow was arrested on suspicion of unlawfully possessing a firearm but released without charge.

A spokesman for Devon and Cornwall Police said the matter would be investigated if she made a complaint.

He added: "Police negotiators had been at the scene trying to make contact with anyone inside the house for several hours."