Buddhist pleads guilty to leaving cat in severe pain

A Buddhist beneficiary who could not bear to have a cat euthanised when it was disabled and in pain has been prosecuted for failing to provide the animal with adequate veterinary care.

Alan Chant, 61, was discharged without conviction after pleading guilty to two charges part way through a defended hearing in the Christchurch District Court.

They had been laid by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals

Chant admitted failing to ensure that the physical health and behavioural needs of the neutered male cat were met, and failing to ensure it got veterinary care.

The cat, Blackie, was among up to 40 homeless cats he has been feeding daily for nine years.

The animal was seized from Chant's property last September, under a search warrant, after an SPCA officer spotted its condition.

Judge Gary MacAskill was shown a video of the cat just after its seizure, while it tried to move about with only one workable leg, other joints fused, and no movement in its neck. It was put down soon after.

The veterinary diagnosis described multiple fractures which had not been treated and a degenerative condition caused by a diet of liver.

The court heard that the cat's condition had deteriorated over several years, and Chant said he had obtained veterinary advice.

He had given it prescribed medication and then treated it with deer velvet, green mussel extract, and later with small fragments of anti-inflammatory drugs.

Veterinarian Ross Blank said the pain suffered would have been brutally acute after its fractures went untreated, but later it would have been "at times severely debilitating and at worst unremitting severe pain".

Chant said that he had become a Buddhist in 1971 and had been asked to be a monk.

He could not kill anything personally, but in extreme cases where the vet said it had to be done, he had agreed to cats being euthanised.

He said when Blackie's condition deteriorated, he had made it comfortable. It had a range of foods but would eat only liver.

The hearing halted after about an hour for talks between SPCA prosecutor Richard Raymond and defence counsel Keith Owen, and Chant then pleaded guilty.

Judge MacAskill said he was satisfied the cat had suffered unnecessary pain or substantial discomfort and Chant had failed to ensure treatment after it received substantial injuries.

Chant was reluctant to have it euthanised but had otherwise done his best to provide it with care.

This was not good enough, and he should have done much more, the judge said.

He discharged Chant without conviction but said he needed to be held to account for his actions.

He ordered him to pay $440 in veterinary costs, $600 to the SPCA for the prosecution, and $260 in court costs.

These will be paid from his benefit at $10 a week.

- NZPA