Daniel Brighton, the local petting zoo owner who last year received the biggest custodial sentence on record for an RSPCA prosecution in NSW is today a free man – and some people are not happy.
The Minto Heights man has won his appeal in the NSW Supreme Court and had his conviction for serious cruelty to a dog quashed.
Justice Steven Rotham found that the magistrate in Campbelltown Local Court who sentenced Brighton, pictured below, to a non parole term in jail of two years and two months had made an error in law.
The magistrate had ruled that the dog Brighton killed was not a pest.
In the appeal court Justice Rotham ruled that the dog, which had attacked Brighton’s camel, was in fact a pest.
As a result, Justice Rotham yesterday ruled that the charges against Daniel Brighton – two counts of serious cruelty to a dog – were dismissed.
Today a NSW Animal Justice Party MP has called for a review of the Crimes Act in the wake of Brighton’s successful appeal.
“If impaling a dog to a tree with a pitchfork is not a crime in NSW then we need to urgently review our Crimes Act,” Ms Hurst said.
“This was a sickening act of animal cruelty.
“Our weak laws in NSW allow for lenient sentences and little to no punishment for acts of abuse and violence. The community will not stand for this.’’
Brighton, who had been granted provisional bail since he was convicted last year, is also the man behind unsuccessful plans for a zoo at Minto Heights four years ago.
He launched plans with Campbelltown City Council in 2016 but they went nowhere.
