Wife blamed jailed sex offender husband for Carrum Downs’ Passion for Pets dirty shop fails
A woman says the stress of people finding out her husband was a child sex offender caused their Carrum Downs shop to plunge into a disgusting, crowded cesspool of filth where pets lay on diarrhoea-covered bedding.
South East
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A convicted child sex offender and his wife who ran a dirty, crowded and faeces-filled pet shop have been slapped with a $40,000 fine and banned from owning animal stores for 10 years.
Passion for Pets director Christopher John Blackwood and his wife Anessa Blackwood were sentenced on a combined 27 council charges at Frankston Magistrates’ Court this morning.
The court heard Frankston City Council inspections of the Frankston-Dandenong Rd store in Carrum Downs found animals in overcrowded, damp, smelly and unhygienic cages and pens, and suspected sick or diseased animals – some thought to perhaps have canine parvovirus – were being sold.
Some had discharges coming from their noses and eyes, some were tired and lethargic and hot to the touch, and others were laying down on wet or diarrhoea-covered bedding.
Christopher Blackwood, representing the company, admitted 14 breaches while Anessa, who managed the store while her husband was in jail, pleaded guilty to 13 violations.
She blamed a lack of ability to properly supervise the shop on the stress of the public finding out about her husband’s abuse of two young girls
She said several staff left, her family was harassed and she was too scared to visit the store.
The court heard Frankston City Council and RSPCA inspectors visited the shop five times between May 2017 and February 2018 after complaints about diseased or dirty dogs and cats.
Each time they found a series of cruelty, cleanliness or record-keeping violations.
The couple has still not provided the council with any details of where dogs and cats were bought from, sold to, their health records or any microchipping data.
Council prosecutor Bruce Gardiner said it was inconceivable that a business selling about 1500 dogs a year, for between $2000 and $4000 each, would not have the money to employ proper management.
Christopher Blackwood admitted the business had “dropped the ball in a major way” and said there was “nothing left” of the company, which at one time ran four pet stores.
He had been jailed for six years, with a non-parole period of three years and six months, in 2013 for five sex crimes against two young girls.
Anessa Blackwood’s lawyer, Kristina Kothrakis, said her 49-year-old client was overwhelmed by the stresses of dealing with an ill father, family issues and the public backlash against her husband’s crimes and was “utterly devastated” by what occurred.
She disputed any animals sold were sick, saying vet checks revealed that.
Since this incident Anessa Blackwood has also been fined by a Ballarat court for operating an unregistered, non-compliant domestic animal business.
Ms Kothrakis said the couple would now be moving interstate.
Magistrate Therese McCarthy said the breaches were very serious and aggravated by the number of repeated charges, but accepted “it was a period of chaos” for Anessa Blackwood.
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Passion for Pets was convicted and fined $30,000, and Anessa Blackwood was convicted and fined $10,000.
As sole director Christopher Blackwood is wholly liable to pay the fine.
Both must also pay council costs of $3803 each.
The Blackwoods sold the Carrum Downs store to new owners in March 2018.
The Leader is not suggesting the current owner of the business has done anything wrong.