COURT: Witness tells of finding dead cows

A farm manager hunting in the backblocks of his employer's farm near Te Pohue found cattle from the property dead or dying from apparent neglect, the Napier District Court was told yesterday.
Gary Trow was the first witness in the case against farm owner Te Pohue Ltd which has pleaded not guilty to 56 charges of failing to ensure the meeting of physical, health and behavioural needs of the cows and bull calves.
He found two cows dead and, after herding the rest slowly back to the yards, which according to a Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry inspection totalled almost 200, another 13 were found to be in such poor condition they had to be destroyed.
Hearing of evidence yesterday was delayed by legal argument which led to the withdrawal of 56 alternatives alleging ill-treatment of the animals.
Farm manager Phillip William Peacock, 35, pleaded guilty to 56 charges on Tuesday, when Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry senior counsel Jonathan Krebs withdrew the remainder of what had been 844 charges in the most substantial prosecution of its type in New Zealand.
It included the withdrawal of all allegations against company director Allan Crafar, of Reporoa, and operations manager David Wiltshire, of Rotorua.
In an opening statement, assistant prosecution counsel Jo Hill said the company was set up to run the farm after it was bought in June 2004, and came within the Crafarms Group.
The prosecution claimed the company was guilty by default in that the key financial and operational decisions were made by the directors and Mr Wiltshire, with little or no autonomy for the farm manager.
Mr Trow said he made his discovery on September 11, 2004, told Peacock two days later, and when the cattle had not been moved by September 15, drove them near-crawling four hours to the yards.
The ministry was called in by the SPCA, and in addition to the 13 cows which were consequently destroyed, MAF inspectors determined 34 others were in a particularly poor state, and another cow had a condition known as pink-eye.
Mr Trow said the previous owner had left 70 round bales of hay on the property, but grassland was mainly grazed-out. He had not seen any supplementary feed brought onto the property, he said.
In January 2005, Mr Trow was concerned that a herd of calves were being put into a paddock without water. Four days later they were still there, two had died, two more had to be destroyed and he had to take six immediately to water, with many having forced their way through a fence to get to shade among blackberry on the property, to shield themselves from temperatures which had been reaching 40deg.
Proceeding