A Tasmanian prisoner who secretly kept an injured cockatoo hidden in his cell has faced the Supreme Court on animal cruelty charges.
Benjamin Edward Bakes, 34, was serving time in Hobart’s Risdon Prison between October 2021 and January 2022 when he decided to capture a Sulphur-crested cockatoo.
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The court heard that Bakes had been standing by a window, feeding the birds by hand, when one was grabbed with the help of another inmate and pulled inside.
For two days, Bakes kept the injured cockatoo hidden, stuffing it into a pillowcase and two blue-coloured milk crates.
Despite his attempts to feed it bread, muesli and fruit, the bird struggled to eat due to significant injuries to its beak.
Eventually, correctional officers discovered the hidden cockatoo and handed it over to Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary where it had to be euthanised.
Three months later, Bakes was exercising outside when he aimed a fire hose at a sparrow’s nest, spraying three of them out and onto the concrete below.
He then stood on the fledglings, killing them and told correctional officers he was “clearing out a pest” because the birds “chirp and shit on us all day”.
Justice Stephen Estcourt acknowledged that while Bakes may not have inflicted the initial injuries on the cockatoo, his actions “merely exacerbated” its suffering.
In court, Bakes received a two-month sentence for the animal cruelty offences, adding an unrelated nine-month sentence for dangerous driving and a one-month term for evading police.
All sentences were suspended with conditions.
