A 24 year old Adelaide man and a 37 year old Ryde woman will face the Cootamundra Local Court on the 7th December 2015 charged with numerous break and enter offences on piggeries across NSW.
In 2013 a piggery in Young NSW reported a break in. The matter was investigated and Strike Force Shubach was established by the Cootamundra Local Area Command after it was discovered other piggeries, predominantly across the southern parts of the state were also targeted. In June police executed an extra territorial search warrant in Adelaide and simultaneously a search warrant was executed in Ryde NSW.
The strike force, led by the Cootamundra rural crime investigator Detective Senior Constable Paul Clancy, examined a plethora of evidence and culminated in the charging of the man with 17 separate offences and the woman with 5. Police allege that the two animal activists broke into the piggeries and installed electronic recording devices in contravention of the Surveillance Devices Act.
The Crime Manager for the Cootamundra Local Area Command, Detective Chief Inspector Paul Huxtable said ‘Detective Clancy has worked tirelessly on this investigation which is still ongoing. Irrespective of your political or philosophical views it is never appropriate to break the law to further your cause. In doing so you jeopardise your own safety, that of the farmers and their families as well as risking significant danger to the animals through the breaching of strict bio security provisions”.