Editorial: Reprieve for seal-basher good reason for outrage

The home detention sentence for bashing 23 seals to death awarded to Jason Godsiff has been deplored by the SPCA. Photo / NZ Herald

Opinion

Normally, there would be good reason to support the High Court judge who overturned the very unusual decision to put a first-term offender behind bars. In all likelihood, little good will come from such punishment.

But, in this case, Justice Jillian Mallon was dealing with a young man who had bashed seals to death.

The imprisonment of Jason Godsiff had sent a powerful message to others who expected cruelty towards animals, especially the protected variety, to be tolerated. But, rather than accept this as an exceptional case, the judge reduced Godsiff's sentence from two years in jail to eight months' home detention.

Examples of such cruelty have been an ongoing blight. Finally, Parliament imposed tougher penalties last year.

The maximum sentence for Godsiff's offence is five years. On that basis, the original punishment imposed by Judge Ian Mill in the Blenheim District Court was appropriate. Godsiff had killed 23 seals by bashing them on the head with a metal bar in an attack described by the Conservation Department as "callous and cowardly".

Judge Mill said the "unprecedented" offending was so brutal, so considered and so prolonged that he had no choice but to imprison Godsiff. Nor did he detect true remorse. Godsiff's lawyer, on appeal, talked of a lack of sadism and extended cruelty to the animals, and said not enough emphasis had been placed on his client's good character.

Yet young men of good character do not bludgeon defenceless wildlife to death. The SPCA, and others appalled by such cruelty, have every reason to be outraged.