Possum beater on video not convicted

Basically, the Magistrate wanted a vet report on the body as proof. We couldn’t provide it because the man had already put it in the bin, and it was already taken away to the tip. Despite this admission on record, the magistrate ignored the evidence. She also ignored his guilty plea because of his “age” and the lack of a criminal past.

As I have said earlier, it doesn’t matter if someone prefers puppies over possums – no animal deserves to die that way.

Acton said :

We all have a right to live in our house without it being damaged by wildlife.

Do we also have a right to have houses not damaged by bushfire? It is called the environment we live in and we must design our houses to cope with the environment and not expect the environment to change.

Acton said :

Possums in houses are vermin just like rats and mice and homeowners should be allowed to prevent their entry or remove them

Sure, everyone should prevent entry to their house by possums. This just means maintaining your house to ensure their are no points of entry (which a house should not have). Anyone with a possum in their roof just needs to get it out and remove the point of entry. You can remove animals indefinitely, however, if you leave a hole there it or another will come back.

Acton said :

strategic move and a compromise policy would be to allow home owners to trap and relocate possums to bushland.

This sounds like a good move on paper, but equates to death by starvation for the possum. Possums are territorial, so if you move a possum out of its home range it will be chased off by the owners of the territory you put it in. Unless by pure luck it stumbles upon a recently vacated territory, it will starve to death. This is why possum catchers must legally release the caught possum within a set distance of where it was retrieved from.

Its quite simple, the offenders actions were intolerable and excusing them just makes their actions acceptable. Rather then just letting them off, the magistrate should have assigned some level of community service to support RSPCA or animals/wildlife in general. This could easily take into account peoples points about situation while maintaining both the law and reinforcing expectations about accountability for ones actions.

Let us not forget, per the Canberra Times article:

“The ACT Magistrates Court heard on Wednesday that Mr Zizi had previously fed the possum in his backyard, but then attacked it with a pole when it attempted to enter the roof cavity of his Woden home by crawling along a power cable.”

So he fed the possum, encouraging it into his backyard, then cracked the Sh!ts when it naturally decided to check out his roof?? No excuse.

Tammy Ven Dange said :

Mysteryman said :

I don’t think the video shows cruelty. I think it shows stupidity. The animal involved was fine, as the magistrate noted.

The possum was actually killed by this man, and he admitted it during the inspector’s interview. What makes you think he was “fine?”

I wonder why the Magistrate did not accept the animal was killed as per your Inspector report to you. Were photos taken to present to the court ?

Alexandra Craig said :

Grimm said :

Alexandra Craig said :

La_Tour_Maubourg said :

Solidarity said :

No outrage here.

I don’t think he murders cats and dogs for fun. He’s an old man protecting his crops and his house. I bet he used the word bastard a lot.

He’s from a generation where you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do, and that does have a lot to do with the sentencing. It’s all about context. My Oma used to pluck chickens in the backyard, as that was what was done – Going to convict her too?

Domaneco’s seen a lot more of life and lived through some experiences that you lot would never be able to cope with. Have some respect for the way the world was before judging him for his actions.

Agree 100%. No outrage whatsoever. Possum would’ve been a repeat offender and the perfect opportunity arose to arrest it from entering the roof cavity. Typical old European generation thing to do.

No. Call a possum removal service. It’s not that hard.

You are missing the point entirely.
I’d be surprised if he knew there was such thing as a “Possum removal service”. He is from a generation where this was the done thing. You didn’t just call somebody else to solve your problems. Where animal cruelty was REAL malicious animal cruelty, whereas today apparently even hunting constitutes animal cruelty to a lot of people.

Like I said before, I don’t care what your previous experiences were or even what was the “done thing” – that doesn’t make it acceptable. Some people are from a culture where beating their wives is the “done thing”, does that make it okay to do? No, of course not. Why are we so flippant when it comes to animal cruelty? As I said earlier, if it was your cat that got into his roof or your dog that escaped and ripped through his garden, and he took the same measures as he did with the possum would you have the same view of ‘oh but that’s what his generation did’?

The real issue here is differing definitions of animal cruelty. You want everyone to accept your definition of animal cruelty, but they don’t. The magistrate clearly doesn’t, either, since she witnessed the same video as you and decided there was no evidence of animal cruelty.

Nobody is suggestion that cruelty is ok. What they are saying is that the video doesn’t depict what they would consider to be cruelty. Are you or the RSPCA somehow better qualified to decide for everyone else what’s cruel and what’s not? I’d suggest no.

aussie2 said :

Our experience of the ACAT and Magistrates Court to date leaves me speechless! You can all complain on RIOT ACT but unless you harness all your complaints and make it an election issue, BAU-business as usual. I am ex Neighborhood watch and now run a Residents Association. I am prepared to sponsor a move to bring the wider community together, but only IF YOU COME ON BOARD. I choose my battles carefully. Up to you now. If you have had experience of failure for the courts to do the right thing, let me know through this site with some contact details.

I would be happy to come on board with you. You can contact me via email (sjbailey7 AT gmail.com). Animal cruelty will be an issue in the 2016 election.

Of course animal cruelty should never be tolerated and penalties should be severe. But this is not a simple black and white issue. We have to use common sense.
We all have a right to live in our house without it being damaged by wildlife.
Possums belong in trees, not in our roof cavities, where they create noise, damage, stench and filth.
Possums in houses are vermin just like rats and mice and homeowners should be allowed to prevent their entry or remove them, just like we can do with rats and mice.
If the RSPCA wants to discourage further animal cruelty cases towards possums my suggestion is that a more strategic move and a compromise policy would be to allow home owners to trap and relocate possums to bushland.
Trapped possums could even be brought to the RSPCA to organise their release in appropriate areas.
Yes, professional possum removers are available but they are expensive and unnecessary if you can do it yourself. We all have tight budgets and most people have better things to spend money on.
I know trapping and removing is only a temporary measure before another possum moves into the territory, but it is a common-sense alternative to people bludgeoning the poor creatures to death and the RSPCA then pursuing expensive court cases and using up valuable funds.
A common sense solution is always preferable to animal cruelty, court cases, public shaming and community members abusing each another, so I hope the RSPCA can give this suggestion some consideration.

Alexandra Craig said :

Grimm said :

Alexandra Craig said :

La_Tour_Maubourg said :

Solidarity said :

No outrage here.

I don’t think he murders cats and dogs for fun. He’s an old man protecting his crops and his house. I bet he used the word bastard a lot.

He’s from a generation where you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do, and that does have a lot to do with the sentencing. It’s all about context. My Oma used to pluck chickens in the backyard, as that was what was done – Going to convict her too?

Domaneco’s seen a lot more of life and lived through some experiences that you lot would never be able to cope with. Have some respect for the way the world was before judging him for his actions.

Agree 100%. No outrage whatsoever. Possum would’ve been a repeat offender and the perfect opportunity arose to arrest it from entering the roof cavity. Typical old European generation thing to do.

No. Call a possum removal service. It’s not that hard.

You are missing the point entirely.
I’d be surprised if he knew there was such thing as a “Possum removal service”. He is from a generation where this was the done thing. You didn’t just call somebody else to solve your problems. Where animal cruelty was REAL malicious animal cruelty, whereas today apparently even hunting constitutes animal cruelty to a lot of people.

Like I said before, I don’t care what your previous experiences were or even what was the “done thing” – that doesn’t make it acceptable. Some people are from a culture where beating their wives is the “done thing”, does that make it okay to do? No, of course not. Why are we so flippant when it comes to animal cruelty? As I said earlier, if it was your cat that got into his roof or your dog that escaped and ripped through his garden, and he took the same measures as he did with the possum would you have the same view of ‘oh but that’s what his generation did’?

I fully agree with this.

But I would also ask, what would you like to have happened to this man as punishment?

We have daily violent assaults of humans in this town where the offender gets let off or gets multiple chances to reform their criminal ways. In the grand scheme of judicial stupidity, this is at the lower level.

Grimm said :

Alexandra Craig said :

La_Tour_Maubourg said :

Solidarity said :

No outrage here.

I don’t think he murders cats and dogs for fun. He’s an old man protecting his crops and his house. I bet he used the word bastard a lot.

He’s from a generation where you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do, and that does have a lot to do with the sentencing. It’s all about context. My Oma used to pluck chickens in the backyard, as that was what was done – Going to convict her too?

Domaneco’s seen a lot more of life and lived through some experiences that you lot would never be able to cope with. Have some respect for the way the world was before judging him for his actions.

Agree 100%. No outrage whatsoever. Possum would’ve been a repeat offender and the perfect opportunity arose to arrest it from entering the roof cavity. Typical old European generation thing to do.

No. Call a possum removal service. It’s not that hard.

You are missing the point entirely.
I’d be surprised if he knew there was such thing as a “Possum removal service”. He is from a generation where this was the done thing. You didn’t just call somebody else to solve your problems. Where animal cruelty was REAL malicious animal cruelty, whereas today apparently even hunting constitutes animal cruelty to a lot of people.

Like I said before, I don’t care what your previous experiences were or even what was the “done thing” – that doesn’t make it acceptable. Some people are from a culture where beating their wives is the “done thing”, does that make it okay to do? No, of course not. Why are we so flippant when it comes to animal cruelty? As I said earlier, if it was your cat that got into his roof or your dog that escaped and ripped through his garden, and he took the same measures as he did with the possum would you have the same view of ‘oh but that’s what his generation did’?

Grimm said :

Alexandra Craig said :

La_Tour_Maubourg said :

Solidarity said :

No outrage here.

I don’t think he murders cats and dogs for fun. He’s an old man protecting his crops and his house. I bet he used the word bastard a lot.

He’s from a generation where you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do, and that does have a lot to do with the sentencing. It’s all about context. My Oma used to pluck chickens in the backyard, as that was what was done – Going to convict her too?

Domaneco’s seen a lot more of life and lived through some experiences that you lot would never be able to cope with. Have some respect for the way the world was before judging him for his actions.

Agree 100%. No outrage whatsoever. Possum would’ve been a repeat offender and the perfect opportunity arose to arrest it from entering the roof cavity. Typical old European generation thing to do.

No. Call a possum removal service. It’s not that hard.

You are missing the point entirely.
I’d be surprised if he knew there was such thing as a “Possum removal service”. He is from a generation where this was the done thing. You didn’t just call somebody else to solve your problems. Where animal cruelty was REAL malicious animal cruelty, whereas today apparently even hunting constitutes animal cruelty to a lot of people.

Completely agree.

Alexandra Craig said :

La_Tour_Maubourg said :

Solidarity said :

No outrage here.

I don’t think he murders cats and dogs for fun. He’s an old man protecting his crops and his house. I bet he used the word bastard a lot.

He’s from a generation where you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do, and that does have a lot to do with the sentencing. It’s all about context. My Oma used to pluck chickens in the backyard, as that was what was done – Going to convict her too?

Domaneco’s seen a lot more of life and lived through some experiences that you lot would never be able to cope with. Have some respect for the way the world was before judging him for his actions.

Agree 100%. No outrage whatsoever. Possum would’ve been a repeat offender and the perfect opportunity arose to arrest it from entering the roof cavity. Typical old European generation thing to do.

No. Call a possum removal service. It’s not that hard.

You are missing the point entirely.
I’d be surprised if he knew there was such thing as a “Possum removal service”. He is from a generation where this was the done thing. You didn’t just call somebody else to solve your problems. Where animal cruelty was REAL malicious animal cruelty, whereas today apparently even hunting constitutes animal cruelty to a lot of people.

I wonder how many leather-wearing lovelies commenting hear would be as righteous about the issue of the saw how their handbags and shoes have been treated and processed in their lifetime.

La_Tour_Maubourg said :

Solidarity said :

No outrage here.

I don’t think he murders cats and dogs for fun. He’s an old man protecting his crops and his house. I bet he used the word bastard a lot.

He’s from a generation where you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do, and that does have a lot to do with the sentencing. It’s all about context. My Oma used to pluck chickens in the backyard, as that was what was done – Going to convict her too?

Domaneco’s seen a lot more of life and lived through some experiences that you lot would never be able to cope with. Have some respect for the way the world was before judging him for his actions.

Agree 100%. No outrage whatsoever. Possum would’ve been a repeat offender and the perfect opportunity arose to arrest it from entering the roof cavity. Typical old European generation thing to do.

No. Call a possum removal service. It’s not that hard.

Our experience of the ACAT and Magistrates Court to date leaves me speechless! You can all complain on RIOT ACT but unless you harness all your complaints and make it an election issue, BAU-business as usual. I am ex Neighborhood watch and now run a Residents Association. I am prepared to sponsor a move to bring the wider community together, but only IF YOU COME ON BOARD. I choose my battles carefully. Up to you now. If you have had experience of failure for the courts to do the right thing, let me know through this site with some contact details.

Solidarity said :

No outrage here.

I don’t think he murders cats and dogs for fun. He’s an old man protecting his crops and his house. I bet he used the word bastard a lot.

He’s from a generation where you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do, and that does have a lot to do with the sentencing. It’s all about context. My Oma used to pluck chickens in the backyard, as that was what was done – Going to convict her too?

Domaneco’s seen a lot more of life and lived through some experiences that you lot would never be able to cope with. Have some respect for the way the world was before judging him for his actions.

Agree 100%. No outrage whatsoever. Possum would’ve been a repeat offender and the perfect opportunity arose to arrest it from entering the roof cavity. Typical old European generation thing to do.

Solidarity said :

No outrage here.

I don’t think he murders cats and dogs for fun. He’s an old man protecting his crops and his house. I bet he used the word bastard a lot.

He’s from a generation where you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do, and that does have a lot to do with the sentencing. It’s all about context. My Oma used to pluck chickens in the backyard, as that was what was done – Going to convict her too?

Domaneco’s seen a lot more of life and lived through some experiences that you lot would never be able to cope with. Have some respect for the way the world was before judging him for his actions.

I’m of the view that no matter what your previous experiences or what’s happened in your life, that’s no excuse to bash an animal to death.

No outrage here.

I don’t think he murders cats and dogs for fun. He’s an old man protecting his crops and his house. I bet he used the word bastard a lot.

He’s from a generation where you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do, and that does have a lot to do with the sentencing. It’s all about context. My Oma used to pluck chickens in the backyard, as that was what was done – Going to convict her too?

Domaneco’s seen a lot more of life and lived through some experiences that you lot would never be able to cope with. Have some respect for the way the world was before judging him for his actions.

Mysteryman said :

Affirmative Action Man said :

I don’t think the video shows cruelty. I think it shows stupidity. The animal involved was fine, as the magistrate noted.

Unfortunately, I think the video shows basically nothing evidence worthy. Yeah, it shows a possum being hit with a pole. It doesn’t show the possum actually being killed, and you can’t see who is swinging the pole. If it wasn’t for the guys admission, there would have pretty much been no case as far as I can tell.

Tammy Ven Dange said :

Mysteryman said :

I don’t think the video shows cruelty. I think it shows stupidity. The animal involved was fine, as the magistrate noted.

The possum was actually killed by this man, and he admitted it during the inspector’s interview. What makes you think he was “fine?”

So…
He admitted to killing the possum but:
CT article makes no mention of said admission but states,
The judge saw no evidence of damage to the possum (why?).

Something is missing here..
Surely if there was a dead possum involved there would be evidence of dead possum right?
Otherwise he didn’t kill it and it ran away.

Mysteryman said :

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I don’t think the video shows cruelty. I think it shows stupidity. The animal involved was fine, as the magistrate noted.

ummm no – he killed the possum!

Alexandra Craig said :

Maya123 said :

Mixed feelings about this. I don’t like the possum being hit, but they are in plague proportions and can do a lot of damage. Is it correct that the possum was getting in the man’s house ceiling cavity? I’ve seen the ceiling damage a possum has done when after wetting a spot on the ceiling, eventually it fell through that spot, where it then panicked, ran up the highest point and sh** all over it. The highest point was a projector, and I was called to deal with a sh** on and in projector.

Yeah, but if there’s a possum problem – you call someone to remove it from your ceiling and you call someone else to block up all the holes in your ceiling. Like you said, they’re in plague like proportions so surely it’s easier to solve the problem up front by sorting the ceiling out rather than murdering every possum that turns up at your house. No cruelty involved by having the possum humanely removed either.

Affirmative Action Man said :

I’m not outraged at all. I think the magistrate demonstrated common sense & I’m sure lots of people will agree with him.

What if it was your pet that this person attacked? Would you feel the same way?

I read, “the court had seen no evidence of harm or injury caused to the possum.” so I didn’t know the possum had been killed, so please don’t suggest I did. And do you know that the person could afford to call someone in to fix the roof? No excuse for killing the possum though, even though in the numbers they are at present, they are a big nuisance. Rather like the large bat numbers too, and they are confronting each other over reducing territory. I’ve heard them at night. I will be building mesh covered boxes over much of my vegetable and fruit garden to keep them out, rather than harm the pests.

Maya123 said :

Mixed feelings about this. I don’t like the possum being hit, but they are in plague proportions and can do a lot of damage. Is it correct that the possum was getting in the man’s house ceiling cavity? I’ve seen the ceiling damage a possum has done when after wetting a spot on the ceiling, eventually it fell through that spot, where it then panicked, ran up the highest point and sh** all over it. The highest point was a projector, and I was called to deal with a sh** on and in projector.

Yeah, but if there’s a possum problem – you call someone to remove it from your ceiling and you call someone else to block up all the holes in your ceiling. Like you said, they’re in plague like proportions so surely it’s easier to solve the problem up front by sorting the ceiling out rather than murdering every possum that turns up at your house. No cruelty involved by having the possum humanely removed either.

Affirmative Action Man said :

I’m not outraged at all. I think the magistrate demonstrated common sense & I’m sure lots of people will agree with him.

What if it was your pet that this person attacked? Would you feel the same way?

Seeing that Peter Slipper and little Davy Eastman won appeals recently, I think your chances of winning this case are quite high.

Tammy Ven Dange said :

Mysteryman said :

I don’t think the video shows cruelty. I think it shows stupidity. The animal involved was fine, as the magistrate noted.

The possum was actually killed by this man, and he admitted it during the inspector’s interview. What makes you think he was “fine?”

“Magistrate Beth Campbell described the incident as “unpleasant conduct”, but said the court had seen no evidence of harm or injury caused to the possum.”

That’s what. There is no mention anywhere in the Canberra Times article of the possum being killed.

Absolutely disgusting. Legislation and the enforcement of legislation has not kept up with the expectations of the community. Generally, I steer clear of excessively punitive measures against those who break the law, but for those who commit crimes against the elderly, children, and animals, our laws are not strong enough.

When it comes to saying no to cruelty to animals, the ACT is thwarted by lazy lawmakers, and a sometimes a too lenient and arrogant judiciary.

In 2016, I will be leading the Australian Sex Party in the ACT to fight for stronger and compulsorily enforced measures against those who act cruelly to animals. I’d like to see other parties do the same.

Tammy, without knowing the case, I find it hard to believe that an appeal would not be successful. The judiciary has made a mistake in interpreting the evidence.

Yes, possums can be disruptive. So can magpies when they swoop you. It’s irrational to hate a creature for it’s behaviour around us (and obviously it’s wrong to harm them for it) considering they do it without malice of any kind and were here doing what they do for thousands of years before we came along. It’s *they* who have adapted to us, not the other way around. And I think they’ve adapted as best they can.

Mysteryman said :

I don’t think the video shows cruelty. I think it shows stupidity. The animal involved was fine, as the magistrate noted.

The possum was actually killed by this man, and he admitted it during the inspector’s interview. What makes you think he was “fine?”

Is the RSPCA planning on appealing?

The chances of us winning an appeal after this ruling is very low. I would actually be surprised if they would agree to hear the appeal, and honestly we just can’t afford to spend any more resources on this case.

Mixed feelings about this. I don’t like the possum being hit, but they are in plague proportions and can do a lot of damage. Is it correct that the possum was getting in the man’s house ceiling cavity? I’ve seen the ceiling damage a possum has done when after wetting a spot on the ceiling, eventually it fell through that spot, where it then panicked, ran up the highest point and sh** all over it. The highest point was a projector, and I was called to deal with a sh** on and in projector.

Affirmative Action Man said :

I’m not outraged at all. I think the magistrate demonstrated common sense & I’m sure lots of people will agree with him.

Agreed. I posted a comment about this earlier but apparently it didn’t pass moderation, although I’ve no idea why.

I don’t think the video shows cruelty. I think it shows stupidity. The animal involved was fine, as the magistrate noted.

I’m not outraged at all. I think the magistrate demonstrated common sense & I’m sure lots of people will agree with him.

kittenlicks said :

I cannot believe the outcome of this hearing. Absolutely appalling. Don’t care how old he is, or how “out of character” it was, there should have been some sort of real punishment, not just getting off on a good behaviour bond.
But this is Canberra, what else would we expect??

Was it out of character though? Unless he was deeply unlucky that someone just randomly happened to have their video camera out and filming into his backyard that particular day. Guy obviously has a history of this that has been reported previously and they caught him red handed and he still got off. Pretty curious decision really.

What I also found appalling was the Canberra Times website actually having the video available.

I am gobsmacked, who can I complain to? This is just so out of line with community sentiment.

I cannot believe the outcome of this hearing. Absolutely appalling. Don’t care how old he is, or how “out of character” it was, there should have been some sort of real punishment, not just getting off on a good behaviour bond.
But this is Canberra, what else would we expect??

Isn’t this the same type of thing as a older drink driver getting off the charge because of their previous good record?

“Please your honour, I have forty years of not killing possums behind me, this was a one off mistake, I should be found not guilty.”

How much do we pay these f***wits to (miss)administer our “justice” system here?

I can only hope that the Canberra community is as outraged as we are.

Well my little corner of Canberra Community outraged, mad as hell in fact. Does the RSPCA record its interviews and are these interviews treated in the same manner as police interviews by the courts?

Is the RSPCA planning on appealing?