Brian Coggan convicted in Dubbo Local Court for stealing Angus steers and heifers

Brian Coggan, 63, of Roper Street in Dubbo, pleaded guilty to stealing cattle and failing to comply with mandatory measures in the Biosecurity Act.

Court documents revealed Coggan stole six Angus steers and eight heifers between September 1, 2021 and September 29, 2022. During that period, he also placed National Livestock Identification System (NLIS) buttons and management tags on them.

He denied the offences at first, however, he eventually confessed to police he had not been able to sleep and needed to come clean with the truth. Police said he was remorseful about his actions.

The court heard Coggan owned and lived on a Eumungerie property about 1000 acres in size where he ran a small mob of sheep.

Coggan had become "annoyed" at the amount of stock that wandered into his property due to poor fencing.

They came from another property bordering his land in the south, which had been leased to a stock and station agent on agistment. The agent used the property as a holding paddock for livestock with around 2000 head of cattle passing through each year.

On numerous occasions, Coggan had pushed the stock back onto the neighbour's property but then kept six black Angus bull calves to turn them into steers. He put his own NLIS breeder device and yellow management tag labelled 'Coggan' in their ears, breaching a mandatory measure in the Biosecurity Act.

For three out of the eight heifers he took, he removed their NLIS devices and placed his own tags. He also used pliers to mark notched out of the heifers' ears to further identify them as his own.

In February last year, the court heard Coggan placed the six steers who had now become adults, in the paddock of Real Pet Food Company at 92 Purvis Lane with the approval of one of the managers. Police said the paddock was not accredited to run livestock.

Coggan told police he did this because of the amount of feed within the paddock to fatten the steers up for maximum profit at a future sale.

Police said he had not completed the required documentation for moving livestock and also failed to notify the NLIS about the movement.

The court was told one of the steers died of unknown reasons.

The eight heifers were still held on Coggan's property. Police said he borrowed a black Angus bull from the same neighbour, to service the heifers and produce calves to be sold in the future.

On Tuesday, September 27 last year, Orana Mid-Western District police officers visited Coggan's address to ask about the steers at the Purvis Lane property. He told them he was given the steers as payment for a shearing job he had done 18 months ago in Gilgandra.

Officers contacted the relevant employer from the said shearing job and they denied the transaction had ever occurred.

Police confiscated the five steers the following day, they were photographed and their DNA samples were taken. After being sold in the prime weekly cattle sale, the proceeds came to a total of $11,546.78. The funds were held until the owner of the cattle could be identified.

Coggan went to Dubbo Police Station on September 30, 2022, where he revealed the truth about the cattle in an interview with police.

On Tuesday, October 4, 2022, officers from the rural crime prevention team went to his Eumugerie property where the heifers were mustered from the property with Coggan's help.

They were taken to the sale yards where they were photographed and their DNA samples were taken. The same day, the livestock agent from the neighbouring property told police he was unaware of the missing stock due to the large numbers that passed through the property.

Defence solicitor Luke Clarke told the magistrate his client had discussed the fencing and cattle issue with the neighbour for three months but nothing had come of it.

"He exercised his own law, bush law, and took matters into his own hands," Mr Clarke said.

Magistrate Gary Wilson said while Coggan's offending was towards the lower end of the scale, a conviction had to be recorded for general deterrence.

"I'm positive this will never happen again from your perspective... but a message has to be sent out there," he said.

Mr Wilson said he had reduced Coggan's penalty significantly, particularly after reading his solicitor's written submissions about him and the nature of his offending.

"I don't consider that there was any intent in relation to the offending, it was just something that had happened because of an ongoing problem, inability to fix the fence. There's a lot of that going on about stealing of livestock, [I have] read about it a lot in the press," Mr Wilson said.

"This is a very unusual circumstance to say the least, nevertheless, you did it. I don't condone it."

Coggan was convicted and sentenced to a community correction order for nine months.

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