Northland man wants to vacate guilty plea of owning a dog that killed a kiwi chick

Kiwi are a protected species in Northland.

A Northland man who earlier admitted owning a dog that killed a kiwi chick on his property has applied to vacate the guilty plea and go to trial instead.

In September Brian Angliss, 78, a retired engineer, pleaded guilty to a charge of owning a dog that attacked stock. The charge related to Angliss’ pet border collie Bobby’s visit to a nest on Angliss and wife Christine’s 20ha bush-clad Russell property in March, this year.

The incident was captured on a camera set up to monitor an adult kiwi and its chick in the nest, which were discovered by a pest control contractor last September.

The contractor found the dead chick near the nest, about 80m from the Angliss’ house on the Bay of Islands property. Camera footage recorded the dog at the nest for 27 minutes before walking off with a live kiwi in his mouth. The adult kiwi did not return to the nest.

No conviction was entered at that stage‚ with defence lawyer Todd Luders signalling Angliss might apply to be discharged. Angliss would definitely oppose the mandatory destruction of Bobby, Luders said at the time.

The case was back before Whangārei this week where Luders applied for Angliss to vacate his guilty plea. Luders said new evidence had come to light since Angliss made the guilty plea that provided a defence to the charge.

Judge Taryn Bayley set a date of February 17, next year, for the application to vacate the plea to be heard by a judge.

If the plea is successfully vacated the matter will be a judge alone trial.

The summary of facts Angliss pleaded guilty to at the time recorded statements Angliss made to the Department of Conservation about having four dogs at the Russell property, none of which were contained.

He and his wife Chris were “staggered” by Bobby’s actions, which were “out of character”, the summary quoted Angliss as saying.

‘’To say that Chris and I are devastated by the news - would be the understatement of the century. We were delighted at the hatching of the last two kiwi chicks, he said.

‘’Although we were aware of Millie - the Jack Russell being a hunter ... we are quite staggered that Bobby has done this. It is so out of character.’’

Angliss had not previously encountered the need to protect native wildlife as it was “unheard of in the UK” where he is from. While two of his dogs were taken for walks on a lead, it was not possible to walk all four that way so two were walked off-lead at the same time.

It was not practical to keep the dogs caged 23 hours a day and he did not want to “torture” them with kiwi aversion training.

“It seems the only other option is to relocate the kiwi from our land.”

He said since the death they had put up fencing and gone to measures to keep the dogs under control so it couldn’t possibly happen again.