Charges dropped against vet
Charges of animal cruelty have been dropped against St. Catharines veterinarian Dr. Mahavir Rekhi, who was caught on camera punching animals at his clinic.
One of the animals featured in the videos was Takoda, an Alaskan malamute owned by Brandon Fairbairn.
Fairbairn was among a group of supporters who attended Rekhi’s court appearance in an Ontario Court of Justice in St. Catharines on Friday.
“I am shocked and in awe,” Fairbairn said after the charges were dropped. “I don’t know what to say. We thought for sure this was an open and shut case and why wouldn’t it be? There’s so much evidence.”
Rekhi, the owner of Skyway aniaml Hospital on Welland Avenue, was facing eight counts of causing unnecessary pain or suffering to an animal and eight counts of failing to provide suitable and adequate care for an animal.
The veterinarian did not attend court on Friday.
Rekhi made headlines last year, when CTV aired video of the vet punching and abusing the animals at his clinic.
In court Friday, Crown attorney Michal Sokolski told Judge Joseph Nadel there were issues with the investigation, which was launched in September 2016 by Kevin Strooband, an investigator with the OS PCA and executive director of the Lincoln County Humane Society.
Sokolski said the OSPCA started the investigation and received a warrant without a complaint.
For that reason, he said Rekhi should not have been charged regardless of public outrage surrounding the case and since the College of Veterinarians of Ontario already took disciplinary action.
Strooband disagrees with the Crown’s statement.
“Frankly, we did have a complaint, specifically from one of the people who went to the vet,” he said.
“Also, once I was done with the investigation I provided my whole brief to a Crown attorney for an opinion and that opinion was that everything was done correctly, no laws were broken, so I laid 16 charges.”
If convicted of the criminal charges, Rekhi faced up to five years in jail, a fine of up to $10,000 and a lifetime ban on owning or caring for an animal.
“We are very disappointed in this decision,” Strooband said of the outcome. “We had advocated for prosecution because the evidence supported it.”
Ed Klassen, president of the board of directors at the Lincoln County Humane Society, said the agency stands behind the investigation and the inspectors who conducted an “exhaustive and thorough investigation.”
“We are confident that our investigators performed their duties well and brought charges forward as the evidence supported,” he said.
Klassen is encouraging the public to contact the Ministry of the Attorney General to voice their concerns about the charges being dropped.
“We expect that the public will be outraged by the outcome of this case,” he said. “The accused was entrusted with the care of animals in this community and will not have to answer in a court of law to allegations of animal cruelty.”
Lawyer Camille Labchuk, executive director of animal rights group Animal Justice, said the national advocacy organization filed a complaint with authorities soon after the abuse videos came to light.
“Now that the charges against Dr. Rekhi have been withdrawn, the doors of justice have been slammed in the face of vulnerable animals,” she said in a statement.
“If our system cannot get a cruelty conviction in a straightforward case with video evidence, what hope is there for animals in more marginal situations?”
The College of Veterinarians of Ontario in August 2016 suspended Rekhi for 10 months for professional misconduct.
He was ordered to pay the college $10,000 and be retrained on how to properly restrain animals.
His suspension was reduced to six months after he completed the retraining course.
Rekhi reopened Skyway Animal Hospital in February, leading to protests in the community.
“He virtually has no patients,” Sokolski said.
The College of Veterinarians of Ontario announced in June it had adopted a new three-year animal welfare agenda that includes consideration of policy development on the handling and restraint of animals by veterinarians and a review of its pain management policy.
But that is of little comfort to Fairbairn.
“This community is crying out for justice,” he said, adding his dog still suffers from a lot of ‘trauma’ from his experience with Rekhi. “This is what the community wants.”