WARNING: DESCRIPTIONS OF ANIMAL ABUSE
A landscaper who brutally killed a plover in its nest with pruning shears has been given a tough grilling by a magistrate and narrowly avoided jail.
Dressed casually in shorts, an Everlast hoodie, a baseball cap and trainers, Tyler Tudor, 31, appeared in Maitland Local Court in the Hunter region of New South Wales on Tuesday for sentencing after previously pleading guilty to aggravated cruelty to animals.
He was hired on November 14 last year to mow the lawn at the home of a terminally ill man in nearby Thornton, who warned Tudor’s employer about the native bird.
However, the warning did not reach Tudor, who was caught on security cameras using the gardening tool to destroy the bird.
He was then caught stomping on the bird’s head to “end its suffering” before dumping it and its eggs into a nearby bin.
Magistrate Robyn Richardson said the footage did not show Tudor returning the barely alive bird and stamping on its head again to ensure it was dead.
She threatened Tudor with jail time but ultimately decided against it so he could receive treatment for brain damage sustained in a motorcycle accident earlier this year.
The landscaper who killed a nesting plover with a pair of pruning shears, Tyler Tudor (pictured), has avoided a prison sentence after being reprimanded by a magistrate.
Tudor spent several weeks in a coma after the March 14 crash, according to a family member’s social media post.
The incident is believed to have left him with brain damage, which Magistrate Richardson believed was best treated in the community rather than behind bars.
This meant that his court case had to be delayed until July, leading to the owner posting the images on social media just days before his death.
One of the owner’s friends told Daily Mail Australia he was devastated by the bird’s death and the delay in the case, which meant he would not see Tudor face punishment.
A post-mortem carried out by RSPCA NSW found the bird was in good health and had “eaten recently” at the time of the incident.
Tudor’s act had caused extensive fractures to the bird’s neck and external and internal bleeding.
Judge Richardson described the facts presented to the court as “confronting and distressing”.
Tudor was caught on CCTV shooting down the native bird at the home of a terminally ill man in Thornton last November (pictured)
Tyler Tudor (pictured) pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated cruelty to animals in July, which carries a maximum sentence of two years.
He also criticised Tudor’s “punitive” account of the incident, in which he said he was scared of the bird and “accidentally” hit it with the weed whacker.
He went on to claim that he then stomped on her head twice to “end her suffering.”
The judge said the act alone merited six months in prison, a quarter of the maximum sentence available for the charge.
“The court must send a message to the community and to Mr Tudor. Such behaviour should never have occurred,” he told the court.
The court heard that his “extensive” criminal record dates back to 2013, but that he had begun to distance himself from negative connections in 2020.
The 31-year-old was given a six-month community corrections order at Maitland Local Court on Tuesday to allow him to receive treatment for a brain injury.
He suffered the injury after being involved in a “very serious” motorcycle accident in March.
The judge then had to weigh the safety of the community against Tutor’s need for rehabilitation from his brain injury.
She said his rehabilitation was “less likely to be affected” in the community and ordered him to serve a six-month intensive community correction order instead.
Parts of that order included a ban on entering the street where the crime occurred.
The guardian is also prohibited from owning an animal for at least five years.
The tutor’s employer told Daily Mail Australia at the time that it had “dealt with him” shortly after the owner posted the video.
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