Peter McMinn, underage co-offenders killed kangaroos with car, hammer in Royalla

One of the group later collated the gruesome footage, set it to music and posted it to the social media platform TikTok, according to agreed facts tendered in Queanbeyan Local Court on Monday.

The document sets out the offending of the only adult among the quintet, Googong man Peter John McMinn, who has pleaded guilty to a charge of serious animal cruelty.

The facts show McMinn, 21, travelled with co-offenders to Royalla in a Mitsubishi Triton early one morning in April 2020.

McMinn, still a teenager at the time, suggested the group should run over some kangaroos "for some fun".

The others agreed and the vehicle was subsequently used to strike a number of the native marsupials on roads in and around Royalla.

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"The majority of kangaroos that were hit were killed by the vehicle, however some that were not killed as a result of the vehicle were killed afterwards by the group using a hammer," the agreed facts state.

The document details several of the instances posted on TikTok, starting at 3.41am when someone shouted "about time" as the utility was intentionally driven into a female kangaroo.

When the vehicle was driven at a large buck a few minutes later, the animal hopped onto a roundabout and a member of the group could be heard making a homophobic slur towards the male kangaroo.

The slur was soon directed at another kangaroo, which one of the group hoped would "coathanger" itself on a fence.

As time went on, the TikTok footage depicted the car hitting two kangaroos as the occupants laughed.

A girl in the vehicle at one stage told the driver, whose identity was not disclosed in the agreed facts, to "get the f---ing baby" as the group spotted a joey and two adult kangaroos.

"I want to bang it over the bullbar," the girl said of the joey, which narrowly avoided being struck as the Triton hit one of the adult animals.

The facts say the group went on to kill more kangaroos off camera.

Police received an anonymous report in late 2021 from someone who had seen the TikTok footage.

The matter was subsequently referred to NSW Police rural crime investigators, who interviewed McMinn in May.

McMinn made "full admissions" to police, who say he appeared to show remorse.

"[He] stated that it was a bit of stupid fun and conceded that what occurred was cruelty," the agreed facts say.

The Googong man's underage co-offenders also confessed their roles in the offending when spoken to by police.

Incidents of the sort were common around Royalla and Michelago at the time in question, according to the agreed facts, which say they were "causing a great deal of upset and angst in those communities".

After the facts were settled and tendered on Monday afternoon, magistrate Roger Clisdell ordered a sentence assessment report and listed McMinn's case to return to court on November 21.

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