Adelaide Plains Council seeks court order to remove disabled Thompson Beach man’s ‘support roosters’
Council staff north of Adelaide are dead set on taking roosters from a disabled man – despite a court being told they help with his severe PTSD and anxiety.
Adelaide Plains Council is taking a disabled man to court to remove his roosters because they are allegedly too noisy – but he has argued the council’s actions are discriminatory because the birds are his support animals.
The man also alleged the court proceedings themselves amounted to torture and breached the council’s international human rights obligations, saying for these reasons the Environment, Resources and Development Court should grant a permanent stay of the case.
In a judgment earlier this month, Commissioner Claire Ryan rejected the man’s bid to stop the proceedings, setting the stage for the court to later decide the roosters’ fate.
Describing a letter from the man’s psychologist, Commissioner Ryan said he “suffers from complex PTSD, his relationship with his chickens was very therapeutic, and removal of the birds, including the roosters, would cause considerable distress and aggravation of the complex PTSD”.
She said the man emigrated from Ukraine in 1995 and had been unable to work since 1998 because of psychological issues, which his psychologist described as including “very high anxiety”, extremely poor sleep, body cramps and frequent nightmares.
The court was told council officers issued three notices in 2023 to remove three roosters from the man’s Thompson Beach property, but he did not comply with the notices.
Commissioner Ryan said the council did not challenge the genuineness of the man’s disability and the court accepted “his relationship with the roosters is therapeutic and that their removal will cause him distress”.
Representing himself in the proceedings, the man said the court did not have the jurisdiction or expertise “to enter the complex area of human rights law, anti-discrimination law”.
“The only choice is to comply (with anti-discrimination laws), okay, and stay away, and that’s it,” he said. “I can go basically straight to the UN with my grievances.”
He said he would be forced to find an alternative home “somewhere where there is not such oppressive an atmosphere” if the roosters were taken.
The court was told the man submitted the continuation of the proceedings would “inflict irreparable harm upon him” and the case had already “been a source of constant and prolonged psychological trauma for him”.
Commissioner Ryan said the man appeared to have “a less-than-ideal relationship with his neighbour, whom he regards as the principal complainant in this case”, but the proceedings were brought by the council, based on on the opinions of a council officer.
In a lengthy judgment, she concludedthere was no evidence of torture or discrimination, and the alleged breaches of international conventions were not a proper basis to grant a stay of the proceedings.
The case is now set to continue in court.
