Ballarat butcher Sam Thymiopoulos performed surgery on his family’s cat and left it to die an “agonising death” before leaving its dead body accessible to his kids for days.
27-year-old Thymiopoulos, from Wendouree, was recently sentenced at Ballarat Magisrates’ Court. He had pleaded guilty in February to aggravated animal cruelty.
On April 23, 2024, Thymiopoulos castrated his Seal Point Ragdoll named Toby after giving him ketamine.
The court heard there was much uncertainty about the method by which he completed the surgery.
After research of ketamine dosages, Thymiopoulos desexed the animal in his garage. A neighbour saw the cat in a cardboard box “heavily sedated and distressed.”
Thymiopoulos ignored pleas from his partner and neighbour to take Toby to a vet.
After deteriorating over two days, Toby died on the night of April 25. Thymiopoulos left his corpse on the property for two days before burying it and during this time the corpse was accessible to his several young children.
Thymiopoulos claimed not being able to afford a professional desexing procedure for Toby. However, magistrate Mike Wardell questioned the legitimacy of this claim considering Thymiopoulos’ maintained cannabis smoking habit and ability to send his children to a good school.
Magistrate Mike Wardell said Thymiopoulos was “completely and utterly out of [his] depth” in castrating the cat and had committed the “most barbaric act conceivable to what was essentially a member of the family.”
He said he lacked “any compassionate understanding of the welfare of this cat and had a complete indifference to its suffering.”
“What went through your mind when you decided to attack Toby… beggars belief or understanding,” Wardell said.
Thymiopoulos was sentenced to two months in prison, was banned from being in charge of an animal for 10 years, and must pay $345 in costs. He successfully applied for appeal bail following his sentence.
Source: Herald Sun
