A former finance executive has been sentenced to community detention, for stealing rabbits from suburban backyards in Auckland

51-year-old Fergus McMahon has also been given a night curfew, in an attempt to stop the offending happening again.

The court heard how McMahon would contact the owners of rabbits who were breeding or selling them, and then sneak onto their properties late at night to take them.

He insisted he just wanted to release them back into the wild.

The case comes after McMahon was arrested in the mid-2000s after dead or dying animals were found in and around his downtown office, some skinned.

At the time, a Sydney magistrate called it "one of the worst" cases of aggravated animal cruelty in Australia.