Charlize Reynierse: Bargo turkey farm invader sentenced
An animal activist who invaded a turkey farm in the middle of the night in a bizarre ‘intelligence-gathering’ mission makes no apologies for her illegal actions, saying she did “the right thing”.
Macarthur
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By day, Charlize Reynierse is an University of Sydney Honours student studying animal and veterinary bioscience, working as animal attendant with not-for-profit organisations and honing her photography passion.
By night the 22-year-old has, on occasion, donned a balaclava, commando boots and khaki top and engaged in illegal antics inspired by an animal-rights documentary ‘Dominion’.
The South African-born Cranebrook woman was on Monday convicted for her role in a midnight ‘intelligence gathering’ mission, caught red-handed on a turkey farm in bushfire-ravaged Bargo, in Sydney’s southwest outskirts, in January.
Reynierse, said to be a member of animal activist group ‘The Dominion’, also operating under the names Legion DX Sydney and The Lost Earthlings, spent a night in a police holding cell as authorities seized from her backpack a digital camera, flash equipment and SD cards storing more than 50 hours of footage shot on the farm.
Reynierse said, when asked if the illegal behaviour would continue, that the turkey farm invasion was “the right thing” to do.
“Time and time again throughout history there have been groups of people who have broken laws to do what is right,” she said.
“These industries need to be exposed one way or another, and unfortunately they won’t expose themselves.”
The 22-year-old was arrested alongside her friend Isabel Sleiman, 20, who supported Reynierse outside Campbelltown Local Court on Monday. Sleiman has not entered a plea to the two charges, which include unlawfully enter agricultural lands to interfere with business.
The escalating rise of Reynierse’s animal rights activism was revealed in court as she was re-sentenced for breaching a conditional release order from last year.
The student had previously pleaded guilty to a bizarre animal rights protest at a Goulburn abattoir in which she, and up to eight other activists, invaded the business and chained themselves to a conveyor belt used to slaughter animals.
Magistrate Brett Thomas warned of anarchy if everyone acted like Reynierse.
“You have the right to protest whatever views you have,” he said. “(However), it has to be done within the law, simple as that. By breaching the law, it becomes mayhem.”
Reynierse was convicted and placed on a 12-month community corrections order for the offences committed on the Bargo turkey farm, unlawfully enter agricultural lands to interfere with business and possess means to disguise to commit an offence.
She was also convicted, fined $1000 and order to pay $670 in compensation to Southern Meats Goulburn and Goulburn police for hinder police and enter lands and interfere, committed in 2019.