A Gascoyne man has been sentenced to three years’ jail and ordered to pay $100,000 in compensation for stealing more than 150 cattle from stations in Western Australia’s north-west.
Richard Arends, 46, faced the WA District Court last week for sentencing over the November 2020 thefts, having already pleaded guilty to the offence, and a separate charge of receiving a bulldozer stolen from Rio Tinto, in November last year.
The court heard the cattle’s ear tags were removed and replaced with that of Edmund Station, which Arends and his co-offender Rachael Third had been running, so the stolen livestock could be sold on undetected.
Additional earmarks were cut into the cattle in an attempt to conceal the Maroonah and Mangaroon earmarks and to replace them with Edmund ones.
The total value of the cattle stolen from the neighbouring Mangaroon and Maroonah Stations was about $150,000.
The stations were owned by Buurabalayji Thalanyji Aboriginal Corporation, which later went into administration.
In November, Third received a sentence of 10 months’ jail, suspended for 12 months, after pleading guilty to stealing 60 head of cattle.
In sentencing, Judge Charlotte Wallace said Arends had been the principal offender.
“The offending was clearly planned and premeditated in nature, and it had a level of sophistication to it,” she said.
“In my view, you did participate, primarily, in this offending for financial reward.”
Judge Wallace said Arends did not have genuine remorse for the offending.
“In relation to the stealing of the cattle, you have gone to some length, in my view, to attempt to justify, excuse and minimise that offending, and also apportion blame on others,” she said.
“Remorse and regret which are primarily directed to the situation you and your family have found yourselves in, is not the remorse that would be mitigatory in the sentencing exercise.”
Phone intercepts
The court heard Arends had been aggrieved by the loss of 40 of his cattle that had perished on a neighbouring property.
“Assuming that 40 of your cattle perished on their land, you went about taking back 161 approximately, so there isn’t an equalisation or a balancing of the ledger in doing that,” Judge Wallace said.
The court was told police intercepted phone conversations of Arends as part of Operation Topography in late 2020.
This included a conversation on November 19, 2020 where he outlined his intention to steal cattle from Mangaroon Station during mustering activities in December.
The court heard that during a telephone conversation with an associate on December 7, 2020, Arends was asked if he had been “poaching” from the Mangaroon and Maroonah Stations.
He responded: “Yes, we did, actually, yep … we had quite a good heist.”
Arends will be eligible for parole in September next year.
Judge Wallace also ordered the proceeds of the sales, currently being held by police, be returned.
