AFR columnist Aaron Patrick defeats animal cruelty charge after magistrate admits he was terrified of staffy cross

An award-winning newspaper columnist was right to be terrified when he lashed out with his foot at a dog that had chased him into a pharmacy warehouse, a magistrate has found.

Australian Financial Review journalist Aaron Patrick has fought for nearly two years to clear his name after being charged with animal cruelty.

Patrick has always denied hurting the dog Rosie – described as a Pitbull or Staffordshire Bull Terrier – and was acquitted on Monday at Downing Center Local Court in Sydney.

Police had alleged that Patrick kicked Rosie in the face with his shin shortly after 6pm on 27 November 2021 in Oxford Street, Darlinghurst.

Patrick was then chased by the dog’s owner, Surry Hills tattoo artist Caleb Harrower, and another man across Riley Street to Chemist Warehouse, where he turned and swung his right leg at Rosie.

The 52-year-old took the witness stand on Monday to give his version of events after Mr Harrower told police he was in New York and unable to appear in court.

Patrick said he was eating a kebab while strolling down Oxford Street when he came across Mr Harrower and his friends Yanick George and Ines English.

“As I continued walking, I came across a dog straining on the leash,” he said. As Patrick walked between Rosie and a wall, he made “loose contact” with the dog.

“A man came up to me and a few other people were standing close to me,” said Patrick. ‘The man spoke to me. He said words along the lines of ‘Get the fuck away from my dog, you son of a bitch.’

Patrick said he was surrounded by Mr. Harrower and his group as the dog owner took a step closer.

“I got scared and I thought this man and his dog were about to attack me,” he said. “Instinctively, I tried to chase the dog away with my right leg. The man tried to hit me.’

Patrick said he had not made contact with Rosie before running across Riley Street with Mr Harrower and Mr George chasing him.

“They grabbed me while I was running and my glasses fell out of my pocket,” he said. “I ran into a pharmacy just to be safe.”

Asked by his counsel, Maurice Neil KC, how he felt at the time, Patrick said “terrified.”

“I was attacked by a man and a dog for no reason,” he said. “The dog had chased me down the street with the man. I was afraid it would bite me.’

Patrick ran into the Chemist Warehouse where he said that Mr Harrower was trying to block his exit and that Rosie remained ‘menacing’.

“He had come up to me and he had a really angry look on his face,” said Patrick. “I was afraid he would keep attacking me.”

Patrick kicked Rosie with his right leg, but again said he wasn’t making contact. “I yelled, ‘Call the police, call the police,'” he said. “Finally I was able to get out of the pharmacy.”

CCTV footage presented to the court did not show Patrick contacting Rosie on any of the police’s three alleged occasions, but he had told police he had kicked the animal.

Body-worn CCTV footage of Patrick’s arrest showed Patrick telling Senior Constable Mathew Clarkson what happened to Rosie.

“It was a big dog and I was afraid of what the dog would do to me, so I kicked the dog to try and get it away from me,” he told the officer.

“But it was in self-defense because I was afraid for my safety.”

Patrick said that while Rosie was on a leash, she was not under the control of Mr Harrower, who he said had tried to hit him.

“If you’re going to charge me with animal cruelty, I think it’s fair that you charge him with assault,” he told Senior Constable Clarkson.

Senior Constable Clarkson then told Patrick ‘I’d probably try to punch you in the face too if you kicked my dog’.

Before being taken into custody, Patrick said, “I don’t have any guns on me and I don’t do drugs.”

“Are you seriously going to handcuff me for kicking a dog?” Patrick asked Senior Constable Clarkson, who did just that and took him to Surry Hills Police Station.

On Monday, Patrick confirmed he had never been arrested or convicted of a crime before.

Mr. Neil: “Do you present yourself in court as a man of good character and honesty?”

Patrick: “I do.”

Under cross-examination by Police District Attorney Sergeant Jas Poonia, Patrick denied ever kicking Rosie, who the court heard was not injured during their encounters.

Patrick also rejected Sergeant Poonia’s suggestion that he told Mr Harrower, “I’ll do it again” after first making “casual contact” with Rosie.

He wasn’t quite sure at what point he started to fear Rosie and at one point told the court, ‘I don’t know what was going on in the dog’s mind’.

During his interrogation, Patrick said several times “I’m not going to answer yes or know” and “I don’t agree with the proposal you’re making me.”

In his closing remarks, Mr Neil said his client ‘mind his own business … eating his early dinner’ when the ‘totally unexpected events happened’.

“It’s quite a terrifying scene of two men chasing another man,” Mr Neil said. “One that at least complained to him and the dog that looked at Mr. Patrick.”

‘He’s scared, confused. The situation took him completely by surprise. He was terrified.’

Mr Neil said police had failed to demonstrate that Patrick’s actions were unreasonable, unnecessary or unjustifiable in what he called ‘this sad saga’.

“What would explain why he deliberately went out of his way to attack a dog in the street for no reason?” he asked.

Magistrate Rana Daher accepted Patrick’s version of events by dismissing the charges.

“It is clear from the CCTV footage that the suspect was frightened,” she said. “He was being chased by two men, one of them with a dog.”

Patrick is billed as the ‘senior correspondent’ for the AFR, writing about politics and business from the paper’s newsroom in Sydney.

He previously wrote for The New York Times, The Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, having begun his journalism career at Melbourne’s Herald-Sun.

Patrick not only wrote for the Nine newspaper, but also wrote the book ‘Ego: Malcolm Turnbull and the Liberal Party’s Civil War’ which came out last year.

He has also published works on the previous Morison government, the demise of the Labor Party after the Rudd-Gillard era and the unraveling of Tony Abbott’s government.