February 7, 2010 12:04pm by David Farrar

A liar and an animal sadist

A MAN who has admitted feeding live kittens to his pitbull and videoing it, has apologised for the massacre and has claimed he’s an “animal lover”.

“I love cats. I love all animals big time. Anyone who knows me knows I love animals,” Te Ahu Mankelow told Sunday News in an exclusive interview yesterday. …

Father-of-three Mankelow claims the killings were an accident and he simply admitted the SPCA’s version of events in the hope he’d be punished and his dog’s life would be spared. …

He said after being told his dog was off its chain he discovered the Labrador/Ridgeback/pitbull-cross had savaged several of the kittens.

“I was like `oh my dog,’ I knew it was wrong and I was really worried for my dog,” Mankelow said.

“It was disgusting for me … I broke down when the SPCA showed me the video.”

Mankelow said he fed one kitten to his dog because it was almost dead and he didn’t have the strength to finish it off himself.

“It might sound stupid but I just thought it would be faster my dog would just finish it off.

“I didn’t want to pick it up or whack it on the head.

So his version is that his dog got loose and killed the kittens, and all he did was feed one kitten to his dog as the kitten was mortally wounded anyway, and that he was disgusted by what happened.

Well that is a very different matter. Except of course that he is a liar, as the SPCA has the video of what he did. Here’s their response:

SPCA national chief inspector Charles Cadwallader said Mankelow was “lying his teeth off”.

He said the cellphone video clearly showed Mankelow feeding at least four of the cats to his dog.

“When the footage starts there’s five live kittens there, and the type of language there is saying, `f***ing Pipi, what a mouth,’ and `man, you can hear the bones crack’, stuff like that,” he said. “One after another they’re (the kittens) given to the dog. The video is almost two minutes long and you can hear the kittens screaming until they’re all gone.”

You can hear the bones crack!

If he showed some genuine remorse that would be a great thing. But instead he is in denial and lying and refusing to accept responsibility. I hope the Judge takes this into account.