lets hope this sentence serves as a warning to others who use their dogs this way,

its a small start at least,

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8575766.stm

Guess we have to start somewhere - here's hoping that we get more of this.

Yes ! at least its a start 

What a disgusting excuse for a human being

I hope he rots!

Johnson had been allowed to keep the animal only when a court imposed strict conditions on his ownership in late 2007.

i think its disgusting that he was allowed to keep the dog from 2007 ,

and then went on to do this awful act using the dog,

surely their should be someone made accountable for this fact,
it shows that the system really did not take the issues seriously enough to take the dog away at that time , but they instead allowed this idiot to continue his bad behavior
until he finally killed someone, 

So before the powers that be go ahead and start banning other breeds and putting sanctions on the responsible owners they should first be looking at how their laws already in place let this guy and his dog walk around like it was all ok,

The law its self i would say are also to blame for this act , they could have put an end to it in 2007 and maybe saved a life,