A Sydney mobile petting zoo owner facing at least two years in jail for brutally attacking a dog with a pitchfork and mallet has appealed against his conviction.
In July this year, Daniel Brighton was sentenced to a maximum of 38 months behind bars for his "barbaric attack" on a bull terrier at 3am on January 14, 2016.
At Campbelltown Local Court, magistrate David Degnan found the 33-year-old had stabbed the dog around six times with a pitchfork after it entered his property at Minto Heights with another dog and injured his camel, Alice.
He later hung the injured dog by its leash from a tree and hit it between six and eight times with a mallet, saying "I'll make sure it's dead".
"It was a particularly brutal and barbaric attack upon not necessarily an innocent animal. But by the time the attacks occurred, there was no need for the offending and he was acting in retribution or vengeance," the magistrate said.
He found Brighton guilty of serious acts of cruelty towards an animal with the intention to cause severe pain and with the intention to kill.
In his NSW Supreme Court appeal, the zoo owner is seeking to overturn the guilty findings and instead be acquitted of the charges.
He claims the Local Court magistrate erred by equating recklessness with intention to do harm.
There was also no actual evidence to show he wanted to inflict severe pain on the dog as opposed to simply trying to kill the animal, court documents claim.
This marks the second attempt Brighton has made to overturn a jail sentence.
In June 2019, he was jailed for a maximum term of three years and four months. This was quashed in the Court of Criminal Appeal, which sent the case back for a retrial.
