{"id":473627,"date":"2026-02-11T21:11:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T21:11:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/473627\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T21:11:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T21:11:14","slug":"bradley-oreilly-victorian-bacon-farmer-cleared-of-accusations-he-raped-a-pig-thanks-to-vigilante-activists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/473627\/","title":{"rendered":"Bradley O\u2019Reilly: Victorian bacon farmer cleared of accusations he raped a pig thanks to vigilante activists"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Victorian farmer accused of raping a pig has been acquitted after a judge ruled evidence in the case was acquired illegally.<\/p>\n

Bradley O\u2019Reilly was accused of one charge of bestiality after he was allegedly filmed sexually assaulting a sow on Midland Bacon pig farm in Carag Carag, northern Victoria.<\/p>\n

The 32-year-old was allegedly filmed raping the pig, labelled Sow No. 8416, in February 2024 by a secret camera installed by the Farm Transparency Project, a group of animal rights activists.<\/p>\n

It is believed the Farm Transparency Project were attempting to investigate alleged animal abuse when the footage, allegedly showing Mr O\u2019Reilly, was obtained.<\/p>\n

The Farm Transparency Project later named the sow Olivia.<\/p>\n

\"FootageCamera IconFootage shows Olivia being raped by a man from February 2024. Credit: The Farm Transparency Project<\/p>\n

According to the Daily Mail, Mr O\u2019Reilly was acquitted of his single charge by a Magistrate Williams last week, who said the method by which the Farm Transparency Project installed the CCTV was illegal and therefore could not be used as evidence against the accused.<\/p>\n

\u201cVigilantism, even for laudable reasons, cannot and should not be encouraged,\u201d Magistrate Williams said.<\/p>\n

Magistrate Williams said the way Victoria Police dealt with the case was \u201crecklessly deceptive\u201d and \u201cplainly improper\u201d, after the judge claimed they tried to deceive Mr O\u2019Reilly into confessing while in custody.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not about punishing you or trying to embarrass you or anything like that, Bradley… we\u2019re here to help you,\u201d one officer said in a 24-minute secret recording, which was allegedly unbeknownst to Mr O\u2019Reilly.<\/p>\n

\"BradleyCamera IconBradley O\u2019Reilly was acquitted of one charge of bestiality. Credit: Facebook<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can be honest with us about what\u2019s going on… because that\u2019s the only way we can help you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Officers later stated that Mr O\u2019Reilly had confessed, but after they had stopped recording.<\/p>\n

The court also heard Mr O\u2019Reilly was not offered his right to speak to a lawyer before the secretly-recorded interview began, and that officers led him to believe he would not be charged if he cooperated with them.<\/p>\n

Magistrate Williams told the court the recorded conversation was \u201cdeliberately misleading\u201d, and that officers implied O\u2019Reilly would not be charged despite assuming a bestiality charge was \u2018likely\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe obtaining of a conviction on the basis of that evidence is bought at a price which is unacceptable having regard to contemporary standards. Accordingly, I\u2019d also refuse to the record of interview,\u201d the Magistrate said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Victorian farmer accused of raping a pig has been acquitted after a judge ruled evidence in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473628,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1313,63,23800,43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-473627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-animals","tag-australia","tag-courts-justice","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}