Magistrate Roger Clisdell likens kangaroo killer Peter McMinn, co-offenders to 'little terrorists'

Peter John McMinn, 21, was sentenced in Queanbeyan Local Court on Monday to a two-year community corrections order, which magistrate Roger Clisdell settled on despite believing the young man "richly deserved" time behind bars.

McMinn, a Googong resident who attended court in a hat emblazoned with the words "I'm a simple man", had previously pleaded guilty to a serious animal cruelty charge.

In blistering remarks, Mr Clisdell said McMinn had been the only adult among a group of five teenagers who "decided it was going to be a lot of fun" to kill some kangaroos in April 2020.

McMinn, who was 19 at the time, and one of his juvenile co-offenders took turns running the native animals over with a Mitsubishi Triton in Royalla.

The vehicle's occupants roared with laughter and hurled homophobic insults at the kangaroos as the defenceless creatures were hit and killed just outside the ACT.

If a kangaroo did not immediately die after being struck, the offenders would hop out of the car and callously finish it off with a hammer.

Mr Clisdell branded the group's behaviour "utterly contemptible and, in my view, beyond forgiveness".

"This was a collective group of teenagers who behaved like little terrorists, terrorising innocent kangaroos," the magistrate said.

"I, frankly, am staggered that people could even contemplate doing something like that."

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Last September, Mr Clisdell sentenced McMinn's juvenile co-offenders to eight months in jail.

Those penalties were, as the magistrate put it on Monday, subsequently "chucked out unceremoniously by the [Queanbeyan] District Court".

Judge Tanya Bright, who upheld the juveniles' appeals and resentenced all four of them to probation orders without conviction, said the facts of the matter "bespeak immaturity".

Mr Clisdell said that decision, handed down last November, had left him pondering whether McMinn and the others were "all peas in a pod" given the adult offender was still a teenager at the time of his crime.

He indicated the rest of the group had piled the blame on McMinn after a TikTok video alerted police to their "inhuman" actions, throwing their older friend "under the bus like a kangaroo under the front tyres".

But Mr Clisdell did not believe it was all McMinn's fault, and agreed with defence lawyer Zac McBride's submission that he must take into account the juveniles' penalties when sentencing the 21-year-old.

"As much as it goes against every grain in my body, I think I need to treat Mr McMinn in a similar fashion [to the juveniles], albeit slightly more harshly," the magistrate said.

"In effect, my hands have been tied by the decision of the District Court."

Accordingly, while he said he "should be locking Mr McMinn up for a substantial period of time", Mr Clisdell imposed the community corrections order and directed the 21-year-old to be of good behaviour.

The magistrate called this a "ridiculously lenient" outcome, but he urged journalists who might want to "attack" him to keep in mind his comments about being bound by the District Court's decision.

"As much as I'm not happy about imposing the sentence I have imposed, it is the just outcome in these circumstances," Mr Clisdell said as he convicted McMinn.

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