A Deer Park sheep owner has been jailed for seven months after pleading guilty to 175 separate offences of cruelty and aggravated cruelty to animals under his care in 2012.
Magistrate Peter Mealy also banned Paul Matthew Hamilton from owning livestock for ten years and ordered him to pay $40,000 in costs for causing “unreasonable pain and suffering”.
The Melbourne Magistrates Court heard between July 3 and 13 more than 40 sheep were found on two Kerang properties to be either dead or in such poor health immediate euthanasia was required.
The Department of Environment and Primary Industries prosecuted the case in what they deemed “was one of the most serious and significant animal cruelty matters it has brought before the courts”.
It began as a contested hearing in Kerang Magistrates Court before Magistrate Mealy on February 10, but after seven days of evidence the accused changed his plea to guilty.
After being told the accused was also pleading guilty to breaching two banning orders in NSW and Victoria, Magistrate Mealy ordered a psychiatric assessment be completed and adjourned the matter to Melbourne Magistrates Court on April 24 for sentencing.
They related to the management of approximately 2200 sheep in a farming enterprise that included an intensive lambing program in which hormones were administered to ewes with the intention of inducing two lambings a year instead of the usual one.
The accused pleaded guilty to aggravated cruelty in respect to these individual animals, admitting he failed to provide them with appropriate attention and husbandry, with the result being that each animal experienced unreasonable pain and suffering.
The accused also pleaded guilty to committing acts of cruelty upon animals in the flocks at each of the properties by failing to provide appropriate attention and husbandry, as well as driving a mob of 1000 sheep by land when they were in no condition to travel.
