Andrew Guy Venn King faces Toowoomba Magistrates Court for drowning a cat

The well-respected Department of Transport and Main Roads worker and JP pleaded guilty to drowning a cat in Toowoomba court.

A Justice of the Peace has been spared a conviction after pleading guilty to drowning a cat that was allegedly killing birds in his backyard.

Andrew Guy Venn King appeared in Toowoomba Magistrates Court on Monday where he pleaded guilty to unlawfully killing the animal in October this year.

The court was told the cat’s owner worked on a property that backed onto Clifford Park Racecourse, and she brought her cat to control rodents in a large shed that housed horses and equipment.

Police prosecutor Sergeant Julia Wheaton said that around 3am on October 21 this year a witness was working at the stables when they heard a cat crying, but she was unable to locate the animal.

“About 6am she was near the boundary fence of Weetwood Street and she was able to hear the cat was on the other side of the fence,” Sergeant Wheaton said.

“She has looked over and made the observation this cat was in a cat trap in the backyard of that address. She recognised the cat as belonging to her friend.”

Sergeant Wheaton said the witness told her friend that she saw her cat, and the owner went to the property to speak to the owner.

The court was told the woman found King at the house and demanded to get the cat back but was told it was “too late”, before he returned with the soaking wet cat’s body in a garbage bag.

Two days later police attended the property and King said he had a bathtub in the backyard which was where he found the cat dead.

Sergeant Wheaton said police conducted a search warrant where they found a cat trap as well as a bathtub with rainwater in it, as well as a water barrel that had recently been filled.

King’s solicitor Frank Martin said his client grew up in Cunnamulla but boarded at Toowoomba Grammar School where he completed Year 12.

Mr Martin said since 2007 King had worked as an assistant project manager with Department of Transport and Main Roads, and had also been a Justice of the Peace since 1996.

The court was told in the months leading up to the incident he found many dead birds in his backyard that appeared to have been killed by a cat and that two days prior to King had been told his 64-year-old sister had been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer.

“Whether that affected him he doesn’t know but these things got to him and he takes responsibility for drowning the cat,” Mr Martin said.

Magistrate Howard Osborne fined the father of one $1400.

No conviction was recorded.

Originally published as Andrew Guy Venn King faces Toowoomba Magistrates Court for drowning a cat