CRUELTY TO ANIMALS

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 185, 3 May 1933, Page 10

CRUELTY TO ANIMALS

Control by Legislation CAT KILLED BY MOWER The extent and kind of cruelty to animals controlled by legislation played a big part in a police prosecution at Hawera last week. Mr. J. M. Salmon, S.M., held that cruelty to animals was an offence-where it was inflicted either with deliberate intention or through sheer callousness. Mr. A. K. North, who appeared for defendant, a young man charged with killing a cat with a large grass mowing machine, in his address to the court devoted some time to this aspect of the question. Accepting for the sake of argument the facts put forward by the prosecution counsel contended that mens rea (guilty mind) had to be proved. The legislation, Mr. North said, did not cover all cases of cruelty to animals. Fox hunting, where the fox was torn to pieces by dogs, shooting and coursing inflicted pain on animals, yet because the publie conscience was not sensitive on these points they were not illegal. The legislation was apparently aimed at a different sort of cruelty, said counsel. It dealt with cruelty where it was inflicted through the brutal instinct of man. In the case in question defendant, after accidentally injuring a cat, had to find some way of destroying it. Even if the prosecution were correct in its allegation that he tried to cut the cat’s head off by lowering the knives, might not that have been as humane a way of killing the cat as by hitting it on the head with an axe? At least if defendant thought so there would be no guilty intention. As for cutting the cat’s head off as a means of killing it, tlie guillotine was used in France as the most humane way of taking life.

The magistrate interposed at this stage, saying that the cases were not parallel. 'With the guillotine the result was certain; with the mower it would probably fail. This, Mr. North contended, might not have occurred to defendant. If he did what was alleged without realising that unnecessary pain might be inflicted he would not be guilty. It was similar to the way fishermen, after catching fish, seldom troubled to kill them, but left them floundering, in the bottom of the boat, not realising the pain the fish would be suffering. Mr. Salmon: It has been established by scientists that because of its nervous system a fish feels very little. Mr North said he was not prepared to concede this. It had been established, he said, that even plants felt pain. The magistrate agreed that intent was an essential element of the offence, but as had been frequently said, the only way to find out what was in a man's mind was to have regard to his actions. Either deliberate intent or sheer callousness were in his opinion guilty intention in this offence. Defendant was lined £lO.