Youth set fire to kittens and lamb

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32462, 24 November 1970, Page 16

Youth set fire to kittens and lamb

An 18-year-old Christchurch youth who was involved in offences of aggravated cruelty to two kittens and a lamb by pouring petrol over the animals and setting light to them at Mount Hutt on November 9, pleaded guilty in the Ashburton Magistrate’s Court yesterday to two charges brought under provisions of the Animals Protection Act.

The defendant was Michael Thomas John Lewis, a chicken farm hand (Mr G. C. Spencer). Detective Sergeant J. G. Scott, who prosecuted, said the defendant, when interviewed about the offences, said he had done the acts “just to be smart.” He was charged with wilfully committing an act of aggravated cruelty by mutilating two kittens, thereby causing their death, at Mount Hutt, and was charged jointly with Robert Douglas Roulston, aged 18, of Ashburton, with wilfully committing an act of aggravated cruelty by mutilating a lamb, thereby causing its death. Roulston did not appear in Court to face the joint charge with Lewis and on the application of Detective Sergeant Scott a Bench warrant was issued for his arrest. Mr J. D. Kinder, S.M., called for a probation officer’s report and remanded the defendant to today, on bail, for sentence on the two cruelty charges. The defendant will also be sentenced today on two other charges on which he was to appear for sentence yesterday, using insulting language, and resisting arrest. Dealing with the cruelty charges Detective Sergeant Scott said the defendant was a shepherd on a station in the Mount Hutt area at the time of the offences. He and three other young men found four kittens outside a whare. The defendant poured petrol over two of them and set alight to them, throwing them into a drum. They screamed a short time before dying. One of the youths tried to make the defendant desist from disposing of the kittens in this way. When interviewed on November 17 the defendant said he realised his actions had been cruel but he had poured petrol over the kittens after another youth had suggested it, Detective Sergeant Scott said. He said that, after committing this offence, the defendant suggested to two other

youths that they catch lambs in a- paddock. One youth tried to chase the lambs away from the defendant but he caught one and took it back to the whare. The defendant and another youth held the lamb and poured between a gallon and a gallon and a half of petrol over it and set it alight. They let it go and it ran off, setting grass on fire as it went. The lamb lay down after runing some distance and was still alive and on fire. The defendant put out the flames and then kicked the lamb’s head to try to kill it. He finally killed it by jumping on its head. # A veterinary surgeon’s report on the lamb showed that it had burning over most of its body, with the burning penetrating the wool to the skin in parts. “The defendant said he did what he did just to be smart,” Detective Sergeant Scott said. The lamb was valued at $6.50, and veterinary expensese were $B. Restitution of these sums would be sought.