Deer poacher cops fine after decapitating animal in off-season

A repeat offender deer poacher and trophy hunter who was filmed decapitating an animal during off-season won’t go to jail despite being caught with bestiality porn.

A HUON Valley trophy hunter who was filmed cutting a deer’s head from its body during off-season and posing for a photo with its skull and antlers has been fined $7000.

Poacher and repeat offender Joshua Andrew Bester, 27, has also been fined an extra $1500 for possessing a one-minute video of a man having sex with a donkey.

The concreting subcontractor appeared in the Hobart Magistrates Court on Friday after pleading guilty to possessing wildlife contrary to regulations, taking partly protected wildlife without a license or permit and possessing a bestiality product.

Bester’s bestiality charge was in breach of a six-week suspended sentence he received in 2016, when he was convicted of animal cruelty by shooting a deer multiple times with a low-powered 0.17 rifle.

At the time, after police found a number of decomposing deer carcasses in his shed and antlers inside his home, Bester was fined $5000 for trespass and wildlife charges.

On Friday, Chief Magistrate Catherine Geason decided not to activate the six-week jail sentence after being convinced by Bester’s lawyer that sending him to prison over the “isolated lapse” would be “unjust”.

However she noted Bester had downplayed his involvement, and that decapitating the deer and posing with its skull cap – a portion of the deer’s skull and flesh including its antlers – showed a “complete disregard” for his previous penalty.

“He insists that he respects animals greatly,” Bester’s lawyer said, adding he now wanted to focus on recreational fishing and his work.

The court previously heard that in April 2018, police conducted a targeted patrol in the Central Highlands around Ouse, outside shooting season when deer were “unusually tame”.

They found Bester – who has about 40 prior convictions for wildlife and firearms-related offending – in the rear of a vehicle, also finding a rifle and two skull caps of male fallow deer.

The mobile phones of everyone in the car were seized, with police finding the donkey pornography on Bester’s device.

Chief Magistrate Geason accepted Bester had not watched the video repeatedly.

“You indicated you have no particular fetish as far as that type of material is concerned,” she said.

Originally published as Deer poacher cops fine after decapitating animal in off-season