The Tragedy of Wags

In 2009, Wags the Border Collie was seized from his owner, Peter Alexander Thomas, starved, dehydrated, unable to stand, and with sunken, weeping eyes. His kidneys were failing, and his suffering had been so protracted and so extreme that he was destroyed by a veterinarian.

Thomas was convicted of animal cruelty and fined the pitiful sum of $432.00.

This week, Magistrate Catherine Rheinberger set aside Thomas’ conviction, leading to a number of reasonable questions into the conduct of magistrates in Tasmania. Rheinberger alleged that the dog was ‘elderly’, ‘may have had cancer’ and ‘veterinary care would not have saved him’. Media reports did not indicate that there was any evidence to support these startling contentions.

One does not need to be a veterinarian to see from the photograph that this dog had suffered appallingly for weeks, if not months, and earlier veterinary care may have enabled him to live out a full and happy life with someone who loved him.

Perhaps magistrates who are ‘elderly’ and ‘may have cancer’ should receive the treatment Wags received (or in this instance, did not receive).

Magistrates’ positions are funded by the Tasmanian taxpayer, and they have a public duty to meet community standards, values and expectations, yet in case after case of egregious animal cruelty they routinely fail to do so. They are accountable to us, irrespective of their threats of ‘contempt of court’ should we dare to criticise them. Should they be on performance based salaries measured against those standards, because this would seem the only way we can hold them to even basic standards of common decency. Perhaps the American system of ‘electing’ the judiciary might attract a higher calibre of candidates, because it is clear that the present talent pool is of a very poor standard. The borderline psychopathic lack of conscience and empathy shown time and time again by Tasmanian magistrates towards animals is indeed disturbing. They consistently and clearly send a message that the most appalling animal abuse will result in nothing more than a slap on the wrist. Contrast this with any attempt to defraud Centrelink or engage in a forestry protest, when people are imprisoned before their feet can touch the ground.

To review some of the worst of the cases, Alistair Nicholls, who cut the tails off more than 100 dairy cattle with an angle grinder and a knife was fined the equivalent of about $53 per suffering cow. Roderic Neil Mitchell, the former dairy farmer from Redpa, faced over 100 cruelty, aggravated cruelty and associated charges over the torture and neglect and deaths of upwards of 350 cows and calves, and has yet to be dealt with by magistrate Reg Marron after 6 years. He simply does not turn up for court, occasionally submitting medical certificates. In one instance he claimed to be suffering from a gastric illness (in Victoria), driving over 100km to get the certificate. In another, he claimed to be unable to travel following a fall from a tractor, but his Facebook page revealed that on the day in question he was ‘going out to get a hangover’. On the other occasions, there were no ‘fail to appear’ charges laid.

James George Turner, who died before magistrates bothered to deal with the multiple matters before them, starved dozens of animals, and breached a court order prohibiting him from having more than 20 horses, routinely having more than 60. His best strategy was simply failing to appear in court, and again, there were no ‘fail to appear ‘charges.

Robert Charles Gregg, a sheep farmer of 20 years experience, received a one month wholly suspended sentence after starving to death 1,000 sheep. Some were so weak their eyes had been pecked out by crows. (Then) Magistrate Helen Wood bizarrely found that he ‘didn’t mean to do it’ and he ‘didn’t know what he should be feeding them’. A visit by animal advocates to Gregg’s property after the sentence found more bodies of dead sheep.

Derwent Valley farmer Richard Rainbird was convicted of cruelty offences over cattle and sheep and given a wholly suspended 30 day sentence. Less than two weeks later, he was arrested again on further charges of cruelty and aggravated cruelty. The 30 day wholly suspended sentence was ‘reimposed’, and an additional 28 days wholly suspended sentence added. Suspended sentences are absolutely meaningless.

Former live export agents Roberts Limited left 35 sheep to starve, confined in a back pen at its Bridgewater Saleyard for more than 6 days in 2007. They were fined $2,000, or about $57 per starving sheep in a case brought by Tasmania Police. If these cases highlight anything, they highlight a failure to address the matters of ‘herds’ and ‘flocks’ and the fact that the collective terms mean a significant number of individual animals. Roberts Limited no longer exports live sheep directly from Tasmania to the Middle East, however.

The real tragedy in all this is that these people are all free to have, and do what they like with, any animals at any time. We have a deeply flawed animal welfare regime administered by a charity beholden to, and compromised by, its relationship with the Department of Primary Industries and Water, headed by a Minister who freely admits to hunting and killing animals for fun.

The only measures that will fix this terminally flawed system is for the entire animal protection framework to be handed to Tasmania Police, which is not compromised by such relationships, and for prosecutions to be taken over by the Director of Public Prosecutions, and appropriate funding and training to be provided to facilitate this move. As it stands, prosecutions of animal cruelty cases can be described as fundamentally amateur, while offenders can afford the best of legal representation. Tasmania has undoubtedly the worst record in Australia for dealing with the most appalling animal abusers, and it is time the Tasmanian community stepped up and demanded better, from this government and particularly from the magistrates.

Stop Tasmanian Animal Cruelty
BRIDGEWATER TAS 7030
www.stoptac.org
www.liveexportshame.com
www.aact.org.au