SIX young people alleged to have run down and killed 10 kangaroos and destroyed $20,000 of wire fencing at a Flinders property are due to face Dromana Magistrates’ Court on 9 April.
The wild spree in late March last year allegedly involved five men and a woman aged 20-22 from Mount Martha, Rosebud, Hastings and Cranbourne.
Sergeant Brendan Leihy, of Rosebud police, said the group had been charged with criminal damage, aggravated cruelty to animals and wilful trespass.
Police will allege the six offenders – two in each of three four-wheel-drives – unlawfully drove onto the Meakins Road property and chased and harassed the kangaroos before running them down at about 9pm, 31 March 2019.
The property owner, seeing headlights out on his paddocks, drove out to stop the offenders who raced off in different directions.
In the mayhem two of the vehicles allegedly knocked down 484 metres of wire fencing while the third, with its lights out, drove into a ditch and got stuck.
Next morning the property owner found the disabled vehicle and its tired occupants and called police. A short time later the other four were arrested and the six, eventually, charged.
Senior Sergeant Steven Duffee said it was “not uncommon” for the gathering of evidence, laying of charges and arranging a court date to take 12 months or more.
“In this case the offenders were not identified immediately and that took some time,” he said.
First published in the Southern Peninsula News – 10 March 2020
