a day ago
Kitten abuser no ‘Jeffrey Dahmer type'
Cory Gilliand-Dickson. Photo: Gregor Richardson
A man who kicked a kitten and mutilated its corpse told police he's no Jeffrey Dahmer.
Cory James Gilliand-Dickson, 20, appeared in the Dunedin District Court yesterday for the second day of his judge-alone trial.
On Monday, he pleaded guilty to a charge of ill-treating an animal, but was defending charges of assault in a family relationship, assaulting a child, threatening to kill and supplying cannabis, stemming from incidents between January and May last year.
Yesterday, the court watched Gilliand-Dickson's police interview from June last year when he was arrested.
The police officer asked the defendant about allegations that he had hurt his partner's baby.
"If I was to hurt a kid I wouldn't do it in front of [their] parent," Gilliand-Dickson said.
He said the people making the claims were "full of s..." and "f..... in the head".
Gilliand-Dickson admitted he would sometimes be verbally aggressive, but never laid hands on his partner or her baby.
"The only thing I would ever hit is a door or anything that's harder than my fists."
"[The] cat's not harder than your hands," the police officer replied.
"Yeah, well, OK," the defendant said.
He said his partner's two brothers, who were living with them at the time, were the only people who had caused harm to the woman and her baby.
"They're trying to pin their past on me," he said.
Yesterday, the defendant's partner gave evidence Gilliand-Dickson had never hit her or her son.
She said they were in a "happy, loving" relationship and her brothers were the only people in the house who hurt her.
The witness explained photos of bruises on her neck were probably hickeys and that she and the defendant would play-fight and she bruised easily.
She said people connected to the situation had made up the allegations against Gilliand-Dickson because "they like to make drama out of nothing".
On Monday, the court heard about the crime that Gilliand-Dickson admitted.
A witness said he saw the defendant kick the pet kitten down the hallway so high it nearly touched the ceiling.
He estimated Gilliand-Dickson kicked the kitten about six or seven metres and described it like "kicking a rugby ball over a rugby goal".
He said this caused its back to break and later it started bleeding from the face, so he killed the kitten to end its suffering and buried it outside.
The next day, Gilliand-Dickson dug up the dead kitten and decapitated it using a pickaxe.
He said the defendant told him what he had done, but did not offer any explanation.
Gilliand-Dickson told police he did not think the cat would be so badly injured, but admitted he "f..... up big time".
He said the next day he dug the cat up "to see what it looked like" and was worried about it decaying and causing bad smells that might attract pests.
"I'm not no like serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer type s..." he clarified.
Jeffrey Dahmer was an American serial killer and sex offender who killed and dismembered 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991.
The trial continues today and Gilliand-Dickson is expected to give evidence.
