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British zoologist Adam Britton has been sentenced to 10 years and five months in prison after he admitted to sexually abusing dozens of dogs in Australia.
The 53-year-old leading British crocodile expert confessed to bestiality and a plethora of animal sexual abuse charges filed against him in Australia in September last year.
Warning that some of the details of Britton’s crimes were too graphic to be published, Chief Justice Michael Grant suggested members of the public leave the courtroom at the Northern Territory Supreme Court.
"Your depravity falls outside any ordinary human conception," the chief justice told Britton, according to the Australian Associated Press.
The popular zoologist who has worked on BBC and National Geographic productions pleaded guilty to 56 charges relating to bestiality and animal cruelty.
The court observed that the British zoologist had filmed himself torturing the animals until almost all died. He also uploaded the videos online under pseudonyms.
Members sitting in the public gallery were seen sobbing and gasping as the details of Britton’s violence and extensive offences were being read out. At least 39 dogs, including nine puppies, died as a result of the abuse by the Charles Darwin University academic.
Britton both tortured his own dogs and managed to source other canines from unsuspecting owners from Gumtree Australia in the Darwin region.
He encouraged others online to commit similar offences and shared advice on carrying out bestiality, according to the agreed facts of the case read out in court.
Justice Grant remarked: “Your sheer and unalloyed pleasure is sickeningly evident from the recorded material.”
Britton has also been sentenced for possessing and transmitting "the worst category" of child sexual abuse material.
Britton did not visibly react to the sentencing remarks by Justice Grant as he stood in the dock in a black suit and grey shirt.
In his sentencing, Justice Grant said Britton was banned from owning any mammal species of animal, or having them on his property, for the duration of his natural life.
The court recorded Britton’s offences to have begun in 2014 until his arrest in April 2022. They first came to light when a video of his offences reached the Northern Territory animal welfare authorities anonymously.
Outside the court where hearing was underway, animal right advocates labelled Britton as a “zoosadist” and said he deserved the death penalty. Capital punishment has been outlawed throughout Australia since 1985.
Britton has also pleaded guilty to four counts of accessing and transmitting child abuse material.
“I was talking with someone else about why I love to hurt dogs,” he wrote in a secret chat group. “I wasn’t sure at first, but now I live for it. I can’t stop myself hurting dogs.
“I was sadistic as a child to animals, but I had repressed it. In the last few years I let it out again, and now I can’t stop. I don’t want to.” He added a smiley.
Britton’s lawyer – who has sought to remain anonymous due to the threats they have been receiving for representing Britton – presented a recent sentencing hearing with a fresh report on the zoologist’s “paraphilia”, a psychological term to describe a condition characterised by intense sexual fantasies, urges, or behaviours involving atypical objects, situations, or individuals.
