By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS
FORMER Tooradin Trial Track managers and greyhound trainers have briefly appeared in Dandenong Magistrates’ Court over charges of using rabbits and a pig as live-bait to blood greyhounds.
Stuart Mills, 30, the former track manager, appeared on 35 charges including three counts of keeping, using or assisting the management of premises for the baiting or mistreating of an animal in late 2014 and early 2015.
His father Anthony Mills, 64, and the track’s former assistant manager Lawrence Cunningham, 57, have been charged with the same offence.
Another 11 trainers and handlers, including former Australian greyhound trainer of the year Darren McDonald, were called to court on 18 February.
McDonald faces charges including allegedly using a pig as bait on 18 November 2014.
The accused men were facing RSPCA animal cruelty and live baiting charges at the Tooradin track, which closed soon after a Four Corners investigation last year.
The men have since been suspended or banned for life from the greyhound industry.
Stuart Mills’s list of charges included the alleged use of rabbits and a pig as a lure to blood greyhounds from November 2014 to February 2015.
Anthony Mills faced animal cruelty charges involving rabbits as live bait on 15 January 2015.
Facing a total of 44 offences, Cunningham was charged with multiple counts of using rabbits as a lure on 23 December 2014 and 15 January 2015.
Cunningham and McDonald did not appear in person in court nor did four other accused – Dennis Dean, 47, Paul Anderton, 61, Eric Sykes, 53, and James Reynolds, 52.
Dean and Anderton’s charges involved alleged use of rabbits as bait in November 2014.
Sykes, Reynolds and trainers Kerry Chalker, 71, Neville King, 68, Brett Mackie, 47, Douglas Wheeler, 59, Robert Smith, 73, and Kenneth Hodges, 75, appeared on charges involving rabbit lures on 23 December 2014.
Magistrate Julie O’Donnell rejected Smith’s application to have his name suppressed by court order.
Barrister Brian Bourke argued the suppression of Smith’s name was necessary while the former greyhound racing official appealed his disqualification by Greyhound Racing Victoria.
The cases were adjourned to be heard at Frankston Magistrates’ Court on 1 April.
