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Jail Me - Animal Rights Activist By Patrick O'Neil, Herald-Sun Article published Wednesday, July 13, 2005 http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,15910843%255E2862,00.html A 56-YEAR-OLD animal rights activist wants to spend 17 days in jail rather than pay $1700 in fines for rescuing battery hens from cages and injured birds during duck-hunting season. Patty Mark, president of Animal Liberation Victoria, told Melbourne Magistrates' Court yesterday she believed she had done nothing wrong. She also refused to do community work. Ms Mark said she had already spent many hours doing community service, saving birds from "dire peril". "This is a moral issue for me," she said. "I will not do community service . . . that shows I have done something wrong, and I have done nothing wrong." Ms Mark was fined $1752 on eight charges of trespassing and entering a hunting area between 1994 and 1999. She will be jailed if she does not pay the fines by September 1. Magistrate Barry Docking said he regretted being forced to imprison Ms Mark, but if she refused to pay or perform community work, he had no choice. "I'm sad about your thinking," he said. "(This is) the only alternative I have." Ms Mark, who founded ALV in 1978, told the court her actions were to rescue "emaciated, featherless little birds trapped in the wire of a battery cage". "I live with both hens and ducks and know very well their great intelligence," she said in a statement tendered to court. "It is time the Government acknowledges the legal system set up to protect these animals has totally failed." Ms Mark has previously been to prison twice, for three days and 10 days, forfreeing battery hens. return to latest news > patty mark sentenced to prison for rescuing animals To receive future rescue notifications enter your e-mail address below.
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