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A North Canterbury man was sentenced to 16 months in jail after killing a lamb with scissors.
Lambs in a field. Source: istock.com
Christopher John Tredinnick, 51, repeatedly beat the lamb while he was a shearing contractor on a farm in Oxford.
He was shearing the lamb in February when he began to struggle and his scissors broke.
Tredinnick then hit the lamb in the face with the tension knob of the scissors, fracturing the eye socket.
After putting him in the holding pen and leaving, he returned and struck the lamb again with the scissors.
Its skull was fractured in several places and the lamb died from its injuries after suffering “significant pain and anguish,” says the Ministry of Primary Industries.
After the lamb’s death, Tredinnick put the lamb in his vehicle and told the farm owner that it had suffocated during shearing and that he would take it home to feed his dog.
“He deliberately made this lamb suffer and tried to hide that fact,” says Gray Harrison, MPI’s national manager of animal welfare.
“Animals need and deserve to be treated with respect, and Mr. Tredinnick did not meet those expectations.”
Tredinnick pleaded guilty to willful mistreatment of a lamb under the Animal Welfare Act.
He was sentenced to 16 months in jail in Alexandra District Court today and barred from being in charge of any animals for two years.
He was given permission to request house arrest and has been placed in preventive detention, MP says.
Harrison describes the attack as “unusual” for a shearer, saying: “Most are professionals and do the right thing.
“However, our message to those who deliberately cause this kind of suffering is clear: we will investigate them and bring them to court.”
