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• Thomas Simon was jailed for 28 months for burglary, animal cruelty and other offences.
• He killed a lamb with a rock and attempted to poison his ex-partner’s horses.
• Judge Michelle Duggan also disqualified him from driving for 18 months and owning animals for five years.

A man killed a lamb by throwing a rock at its head before going on to try and poison his ex-partner’s horses in acts of cruelty described as nasty and psychologically abusive.

Thomas Simon had become annoyed at the bleating of the lamb and threw a rock at the animal, causing it traumatic brain injuries. It died minutes later.

Judge Michelle Duggan described it as nasty, saying it was the final straw that led his ex-partner to apply for a protection order in July.

While the court heard he had used a rock to kill the lamb, Simon said after he was arrested that he had used a metal pole.

“I don’t know how you killed the lamb, but you have accepted that you ill-treated the lamb,” Judge Duggan said to him at his sentencing in the Christchurch District Court this week.

He then burgled the woman’s house the following month, taking a quad bike, an awning and a dog he believed was his.

Simon then turned his attention to the horses at her property.

He sprinkled rat poison into bags of horse feed and tipped more rat poison into the horses’ only water supply.

Judge Duggan said it was that act which had a particular level of nastiness about it.

“That is clearly psychologically abusive of your ex-partner, and it would have been a miserable death for the horses.”

While the horses didn’t die, Judge Duggan said the offending against the lamb equally worried her.

She dismissed a request from Simon’s lawyer Hannah Skelton to defer sentencing for a psychologist’s report and jailed him for 28 months on charges of burglary, ill-treatment of animals, contravening a protection order, failing to comply with conditions of a protection order and excess breath alcohol.

Skelton said a psychologist’s report had landed late on Tuesday, and while not disputing the nature of the offending, said the report could help provide a link with his history of trauma and the offending, which could then provide a discount at sentencing.

Judge Duggan said home detention would not be an option, even if the sentence was less than 24 months’ jail, the threshold for such a sentence to be considered.

“I’m not prepared to adjourn sentencing today; I have to take into account a whole lot of things including the victim’s right to have matters resolved.”

Skelton then took a starting point of three years’ imprisonment, with no mitigating submissions.

However, she pointed out that his offending was fuelled by addiction and mental health issues.

At 34, he has more than 30 previous convictions, including seven for drink-driving. His latest drink-driving conviction showed a reading of 818 micrograms of alcohol per litre of breath in July.

Simon Thomas was sentenced in Christchurch District Court. Photo / File

Simon had not wanted to participate in restorative justice but provided an apology letter to the victim which Skelton acknowledged was inconsistent with the pre-sentence report.

But the judge was not satisfied he was remorseful.

“You victim blamed; I am not prepared to give you any credit for remorse.”

The court heard the failing to comply with the protection order charge related to Simon having possession of an air rifle and an air pistol, which he was not allowed given he’d had three protection orders issued against him between 2019 and 2024.

Along with being jailed for 28 months, he was disqualified from driving for 18 months and prohibited from having an animal for five years.

Al Williams is an Open Justice reporter for the New Zealand Herald, based in Christchurch. He has worked in daily and community titles in New Zealand and overseas for the last 16 years. Most recently he was editor of the HC Post, based in Whangamata. He was previously deputy editor of Cook Islands ��һ�ǿ�����.