Sheepish trio take wrong road

Is it OK to shoot a sheep if it runs across the road in front of you? This was the question quickly deliberated by three young men on a rural Hawke’s Bay road at the weekend.

They decided it was. So they shot it and put it on the back of their ute. But it turns out it wasn’t - the trio left Napier District Court yesterday convicted of theft of a sheep and cruelty to an animal.

Shannon Brown, 27, Daryl Chapman, 30, and Jacob Green, 21, were driving in Brown’s ute along Darkys Spur Road, between Napier and Wairoa, about 6.30pm last Saturday.

The court heard that three sheep ran on to the road in front of them. They shot one of them.

A resident who lived nearby heard the shot and investigated. He took down the ute’s registration and called police, who pulled the men over as the ute neared Napier.

As officers spoke to the men they noticed a live sheep covered in blood on the back of the ute. The men told the officers they’d shot it and thought it was dead. It had to be put down.

They told the officers they thought it was OK to shoot the sheep because it was on a country road, which was a public place.

The sheep’s owner was identified by the ear tag. It was valued at $120.

The men’s lawyer, Cameron Robertson, said they made ‘‘a series of errors in relation to the law about where they can shoot and where they can’t’’.

‘‘They thought being on a public road it was free game,’’ and they had intended to kill it, not harm it, he said.

‘‘They did think it was dead when they put it in the box,’’ Robertson said.

The men had paid the farmer $120 reparation.

But Judge Geoff Rea wasn’t convinced by the men’s explanation.

‘‘The excuses you have put forward ring extremely hollow. You took an opportunity to have a crack at some mutton when you could. How you could think you were entitled to shoot it the way you did, I don’t know,’’ he said.

The fact they had pleaded guilty indicated they knew they couldn’t, the judge said. He sentenced each of them to 60 hours’ community work.