BY NOEL TOWELL
The Canberra Times
28/10/2008
Two Canberra men have been jailed by a NSW
court over the ''prolonged'' torture of two pet ferrets inJerrabomberra
last year.
Adriano Larobina and Thomas Sorahan were each imprisoned for
10 months by Queanbeyan Local Court yesterday after being found
guilty of committing serious acts of animal cruelty.
The two 26-year-olds continue to maintain their innocence
of any involvement in the incident, in which a syringe was
used to inject one of the animals with an unknown substance
with the act of cruelty recorded on a video camera.
On the recording, a man's voice, alleged to be Larobina's,
says, ''He loves it, he'll be pinging in no time.'' The bodies
of the animals were never found.
Police prosecutor Rod Gordon told the court that the case
was at the upper end of the scale of animal cruelty offences.
''I don't think I've ever seen a worse case of animal cruelty,''
the prosecutor said.
''We can only imagine what was in that syringe when the ferret
was injected.
''This was an intentional act by adults to inflict great pain
and ultimately death on these animals.''
The court heard that Sorahan, a real estate agent with Canberra
firm Wright Dunn, in May last year shared a Jerrabomberra house
with Andrew Bell, who owned the ferrets Trigger and Cooch.
The ferret breeder, who told the court he had fitted his yard
so his pets could not escape, said he returned home from work
one Monday to find his ferrets missing, water on the garage
floor and the house smelling of ferret.
He said when Sorahan arrived home after drinking with Larobina
he was drunk and carrying a camera.
Mr Bell later found images on the camera of his ferrets in
the garage and on his kitchen bench.
A ferret's leg was in an unnatural position in one image,
as though it was broken or dislocated, and a film clip on the
camera showed a ferret held down and injected with a syringe.
Two other men in the clip have not been identified.
Sentencing the pair yesterday, Magistrate Brian Van Zuylen
described the contents of the photographs and animal rights
activists wept. The magistrate told Sorahan and Larobina that
they had shown no remorse or contrition for their acts.
''The court is satisfied that the photos and video showed
torture and cruelty to these animals,'' he said.
''Bearing in mind the nature of the photographs, the pain
that must have been inflicted on the white ferret in particular,
the court has come to the conclusion that only a full-time
custodial sentence is appropriate.''
The men's lawyers, who argued for non-custodial sentences,
tendered character references to the court that said Sorahan
had a ''genuine affection for animals''.
But Mr Van Zuylen said, ''He has two character references
that state their belief that he is kind to animals and wouldn't
do something like this. However, the court finds beyond reasonable
doubt that he has done [it].''
Defence lawyers for the two men, who will both be eligible
for parole next March, said they would appeal against sentences
and convictions.
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