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Statement to Magistrates Court on Non - Payment of Fines Your Honour, I stand before you today for the non-payment of eight fines received between 1994 and 1999 in the State of Victoria. These fines relate both to the rescue of battery hens from factory farms and the rescue of wounded waterbirds shot or harassed during the duck-shooting season. I am a person of good behaviour and good intention and my actions when I was fined were peaceful and with the sole aim of preventing suffering and saving lives. In 1978 I founded Animal Liberation Victoria and have spent the past 27 years working full time on a voluntary basis for this organization and in an effort to draw public attention to the enormous pain and torment suffered by animals we imprison on factory farms. For many years I wrote countless letters, attended meetings with numerous Minister's for Agriculture, inspected factory farms and abattoirs around Australia, submitted reports to legal authorities, lobbied government agencies and begged the police and especially the RSPCA for help. None of this worked. I received on-going appeals and complaints about conditions from workers inside factory farms. Then in 1993, born out of sheer frustration and torment of knowing what was happening to so many animals - combined with repeated lack of attention or resolution by the legal authorities - our 'open rescue' life saving efforts began. My fines, your honour, were for the rescue of emaciated, featherless little birds trapped in the wire of a battery cage, many were bleeding, injured and with no where to sit except on the rotting corpse of a cagemate. Some were impaled on broken rusty wires inside the cage and screaming out in pain. Cobwebs hung from the walls, ceilings and cages; and rats scurried along the egg and feed trays. Some hens were left to suffocate in wet mounds of their own droppings under the cages. I lifted them out and washed the feces from their cold dehydrated bodies. I gave them a much-needed drink of water. The wounded ducks I pulled from the water had been shot by young men shooting birds on the water, which is illegal, other totally defenceless birds were exhausted from frantic flying trying to escape the frenzied shooting that split apart their previous peaceful home. I live with both hens and ducks and know very well their great intelligence, their personal behaviors, their close bonding and the pain they suffer in all these circumstances. It goes against everything in my heart, head and body to pay a fine for helping sick, injured and suffering animals and taking them to a vet for treatment - which is all I was doing. Maybe there is something wrong with me that I cannot stop trying to do all I can to help these animals. It is rather hard, especially at my age, to climb barbed wire fences in the dark of night and crawl through manure pits to 'trespass' where I know there is no one in attendance to help confined animals who are in dire peril. And if staff were in attendance, I'm convinced many would still turn a blind eye. I cannot betray these animals after all I've seen them suffer, I am continually haunted by the knowledge that many routinely slowly hunger and thirst to death. I believe it is morally wrong for me to pay a monetary fine or perform community service time as an act of acknowledgement that I've done something I shouldn't have done. I do not believe helping these animals was illegal. I understand your honour has some discretion in hearing this matter. I appeal to you to extend a helping hand to these animals. By dismissing these fines you can give these animals a beacon of hope. You can make it clear, that indeed, something is wrong, but it's more the failure of the system protecting the welfare of animals, rather than me refusing to ignore their plight... Prison is not a nice place to be. My short time there in the past has only strengthened my resolve to work as hard as I can to free the imprisoned hens because I know how dreadful it is. And each and every battery hen has a life sentence - no parole. Thank you. Patty Mark, President 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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