A Gisborne man has pleaded guilty to feeding five live kittens to his pit bull terrier.
Te Ahu Mankelow, 31, appeared in the Gisborne District Court on Monday on five charges of wilful ill treatment of an animal.
Te Ahu Mankelow, 31, appeared in the Gisborne District Court on Monday on five charges of wilful ill treatment of an animal.
Mankelow gave no explanation as to why he fed five live kittens to his pet pit bull terrier, Pipi.
He hid from the media outside court, but there was no escaping the ONE News camera inside the courtroom.
"The defendant's dog attacked the kittens one by one, biting them and breaking their bones. At least one kitten was obliterated. When the kittens struggled away, the defendant picked them up and threw them back to his dog," prosecutor Vicki Thorpe told the court.
The SPCA says Mankelow was at a party at a house when his pit bull terrier smelt something in a box in a car parked in the driveway. When he looked he discovered kittens.
He then took them to a tree behind the house, gave them to his dog and encouraged it to eat them.
The vicious attack was videoed, but the SPCA is not releasing the gruesome footage until sentencing.
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Mankelow's sister, Vonita Mankelow, says her brother was just being "silly".
"He has definitely learnt his lesson of how serious the offence is that he done. But I don't think he should go to jail. It's just a silly thing he did that has really got out of control," she says.
The SPCA claims Te Ahu Mankelow had trained his pit bull terrier to kill. They have been forced to put it down because it was considered too dangerous.
Mankelow will be sentenced next month. Wilful ill treatment of an animal carries a maximum jail term of three years.
In another case, in the Pukekohe District Court, Judge Sharon McAuslan jailed David Hamuera Snook for two years and four months for tearing the head off a kitten in front of his former partner and children.
He was also banned from owning or exercising animals for five years and Judge McAusland described the killing as "callous, brutal and cruel".
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