The Supreme Court held that fines of $48,000 and $39,000 (against a $50,000 maximum) for a one-off act of animal cruelty involving the killing of a single pigeon were manifestly excessive where both offenders were of good character, pleaded guilty at the first opportunity, cooperated with authorities, and were accepted as remorseful and unlikely to reoffend, and substituted fines of $18,000 and $14,000 respectively. The Court expressed doubt about the correctness of Neach v Hobbs [2021] WASC 135 in holding that s 9AA of the Sentencing Act 1995 (WA) is limited to sentences of imprisonment, noting the statutory definition of 'head sentence' does not mandate that conclusion, but did not resolve the question as it was unnecessary to the outcome. The magistrate's approach of treating the guilty plea discount as exhausted by the decision to impose a fine rather than imprisonment was implicitly rejected as an error.
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