Budgie cruelty penalty sends 'wrong message'

Milla the dog can't wait for the opening of the $1.4 million Education Centre at the SPCA's Mangere village. Picture / Glenn Jeffrey

The SPCA says it is frustrated that a judge regarded a burglary as more serious than microwaving a budgie to death.

Auckland SPCA chief executive Bob Kerridge said a judge who sentenced a youth for burglary and microwaving a pet budgie sent the wrong message by saying the property offences were more serious.

Ashley James Daldy, 18, confessed to carrying out eight burglaries, including three at Hamilton West School, where he also stole the classroom pet.

Daldy took the budgie home and mircrowaved it to death.

He was sentenced to nine months in prison when he appeared in the Hamilton District Court on Monday.

Judge Anne McAloon said killing the budgie was a "particularly nasty offence" but the burglaries were considered more serious.

Speaking as the SPCA began construction on a $1.4 million education centre to teach compassion and respect towards animals, Mr Kerridge said sentences for animal cruelty tended to be "on the light side" and only a few serious cases had resulted in short jail terms

The penalty for wilfully ill-treating an animal is a prison sentence of up to three years, and a maximum fine of $50,000.

"We do battle with judges that tend to put animal cruelty down the scale a bit," said Mr Kerridge.

"That epitomises from the judiciary down what people think of animals."

The Education Centre at the SPCA village in Mangere will include an entrance designed by Weta Workshop and a 70-seat auditorium. The organisation is still trying to raise $280,000.
"If we can teach people to respect and value animal life that is going to pass on to their respect for other life, including humans," said Mr Kerridge.

"Not only will we stop animal cruelty but the biggest by-product is we will influence particularly young minds ... to respect animal life and not put them on that low scale. That's where this message is so wrong."

Neil Billington, senior judicial communications adviser, said last night that judges were required to apply the law.

"The law imposes higher penalties for offences such as burglary than it does for offences involving the wilful ill-treatment of animals.

"In a legal sense it is therefore correct to say burglary offences are more serious."

"This in no way denies the abhorrence people may feel about the mistreatment of animals. This was reflected in the Daldy case. The offender received the same sentence of that of imprisonment for the offence involving the animal as he did in respect of the burglary charges."

The new SPCA centre is expected to be completed by the end of this year. Among the guests invited to turn the first sod at the village yesterday were four Manurewa Intermediate students who went to the aid of a seriously ill dog on their way to school last month.

Zoe Cumming-Steward, Elizabeth Ireland, Ross Walker and Samuel Broadbent, all aged 11, used a cellphone to ring 111 and used clothing to keep the dog warm.

The children said that while they were tending the animal, a group of high school students came along and wanted to burn the dog with a cigarette.

The children protected the dog, which had infections and was later put down, until the SPCA arrived.

"People should treat an animal with respect, like you treat a human with respect," said Elizabeth.

* Bob Kerridge will today receive an honorary Bachelor of Applied Animal Technology (BAppAnTech) from Unitec during a ceremony at the Auckland Town Hall.