Man cleared of sheep neglect charge

Press, 6 November 1984, Page 14

Man cleared of sheep neglect charge

PA Auckland A farm manager charged with animal neglect after several severely distressed sheep had to be destroyed has been acquitted. The case against an Auckland Regional Authority farm manager, Robin Errol Schwass, aged 41, of Mangere, was laid when S.P.C.A. inspectors found maggot-infested, facial eczema-infected sheep on the AR.A.’s Ambury Park. Schwass denied a charge of neglecting sheep so as to cause them unneccessary pain or suffering. An inspector for the S.P.C.A., Michael John Donnelly, told Judge Duncan in

the District Court at Otahuhu that he found two sheep lying in a paddock on Ambury farm with maggots crawling out of their eye sockets. After taking advice from a veterinary surgeon he shot the sheep. The next day he met Schwass on the farm and after inspecting the flock seven more sheep were put down because they were badly affected by facial eczema. A veterinary surgeon, Reginald Gregory, said that the sheep he examined at Ambury farm had severe facial burns and were suffering from fly strike.

The sheep appeared to have been suffering facial eczema for about 1C days and maggots on their heads were fully matured at three to four days old, Mr Gregory said. The two animals killed were in a severe state of distress and had no chance of survival, he said. Schwass told the Court he took about 30 sheep from another A.R.A. farm to Ambury Park because they had contracted facial eczema. Over the next week he tried to visit them every day and had to put some down because they had no chance of survival. On Friday, April 13, he was busy dealing with 800 lambs that arrived at the Manurewa farm and had to be drenched and on the

Saturday he was overseeing periodic detention workers and had no chance to check the sheep. *’ Schwass said he must have missed the two badly infected sheep when he did his rounds on the Thursday or he would certainly have put them out of their miS-' ery* . - The Judge said it was* unfortunate that Schwass missed the sheep on Thurs-, day but he had good reasojt for not checking them on Friday and would have' checked them on the Saturday if the S.P.C.A. had not beaten him to it.

Schwass had shown good farm management in the past and his actions did not amount to wilful neglect of the animals, Judge Duncan said.