Editorial: Courts should get tough on animal cruelty

Opinion

The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has hailed the 12-month jail sentence imposed on a Dunedin man for torturing and killing a dog. It is the harshest punishment for animal cruelty ever in this country. The society's reaction is understandable.

For years, it has watched as judges responded to severe cases of cruelty with small fines or short periods of community work. Equally, however, it must wonder why the sentence delivered in this case by Judge Stephen O'Driscoll amounted to only a third of the maximum term of imprisonment prescribed by the law.

It is hard to imagine a more horrific example of cruelty. Jeffrey Hurring, a Dunedin 19-year-old, first tried to strangle the 18-month-old Jack Russell with a chain, his hands and his feet. When the dog did not die after 30 minutes, he poured petrol down its throat, stuffed a pillow-case down its throat and finally hit it on the head with a spade. That broke the dog's back and jaw, killing it.

Judge O'Driscoll noted the attack was at the higher end of the scale in terms of seriousness and gravity. But rather than take as a starting point the maximum three-year jail term imposed by the Animal Welfare Act 1999 for the wilful ill-treatment of animals, he chose 18 months.

He then trimmed six months off this in recognition of Hurring's age, his early guilty plea, his remorse, his acceptance of responsibility for the dog's suffering, his lack of previous convictions and his naivety and immaturity. These, said Judge O'Driscoll, diminished culpability.

It is possible some of these factors are grounds for a reduced sentence. But they do not explain why the judge failed to acknowledge the Sentencing Act 2002, under which the court must impose either the maximum or near-maximum penalty in the worst cases.

This legislation was intended to address widespread concern that judges were being too lenient in their sentencing of criminals for particularly bad episodes of assault. Sentencing, it said, should be a matter of denunciation, deterrence, accountability, protection of the community, promotion of a sense of responsibility in the offender, and provision for the victim's interests. Obviously, the target was attacks on humans, but surely it applies equally to other living creatures.

Judge O'Driscoll may well have been guided by the previous penalties handed down for cruelty against animals. Examples of people being imprisoned are rare, and the maximum punishment has been nine months' jail.

If the judge had imposed the three-year penalty, it could have presented grounds for an appeal on the basis that it was out of kilter with previous sentencing. In effect, judges' low penalty thresholds in the immediate wake of the 1999 law have created a rod for their own backs. Their discretionary powers could, however, be used to remove that burden.

Those initial penalties probably said something about long-standing attitudes to animals. They have been regarded as undeserving of special protection, and offences against them were considered a minor matter.

But attitudes are changing. The widespread condemnation of the use of sow stalls in pig farming and the controversy over Australian jumps racing bear testimony to rising concern over mistreatment. Allied with this has been research establishing a strong link between youthful abuse of animals and adult violence. This reinforces the fact that maltreatment of animals needs to be addressed more seriously.

The police, the SPCA and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry are responsible for enforcing the animal welfare law. All are under-resourced for this. They should not be further frustrated by a judiciary that, contrary to the popular wish, fails to fully punish shocking cases of cruelty.