Her sentencing was delayed while the Ministry of Primary Industries considered whether to lay further charges relating to the deaths of the deer and that took place today. Cole put in immediate guilty pleas and was remanded for the hearing about a possible psychological assessment.
She has now admitted charges of wilful ill-treatment of 41 deer that were found dead, and failing to provide for the physical, health, and behavioural needs of 124 deer that were later euthanised.
MPI prosecutor Mel Russell told Judge Tony Couch that the Ministry received a complaint on April 9, 2021, from a member of the public about dead and dying deer on a Leeston property where Cole was the person in charge of the animals.
When inspectors went to the property they found dead chickens, dead deer, malnourished deer and horses that required farrier treatment.
There were 41 dead deer in paddocks without sufficient pasture, no supplementary feed, and no working water troughs. They had died of starvation and dehydration over a period of weeks.
Another 124 deer were found in paddocks that had no accessible feed or water. Three adjoining paddocks had pasture that had not been recently grazed. Twenty-eight bales of supplementary feed was available at the property, unopened and unused.
The inspectors let the deer into paddocks where there was water and pasture, but the animals were later euthanised under veterinary supervision.
The Ministry will ask the court to ban Cole from being in charge of any animal for 15 years, and is seeking veterinary expenses of $4272.
