British crocodile expert who raped and tortured dogs is jailed for 10 years

A British zoologist who worked with Sir David Attenborough was jailed for 10 years in Australia on Thursday after admitting to raping, torturing and killing dozens of dogs.

Adam Britton, who once filed documentaries with the BBC and National Geographic, pleaded guilty to 56 charges of bestiality and animal cruelty and four counts of accessing and transmitting child abuse material.

The 52-year-old had been a globally renowned crocodile expert before sadistic videos exposed his secret life as one of the world’s worst animal abusers.

Announcing the sentence of 10 years and five months at court in Darwin, Chief Justice Michael Grant told Britton that his conduct “involved a degree of depravity and reprehensibility which falls entirely outside any ordinary human conception and comprehension”.

“The sheer deviance and brutality of your conduct is not satisfactorily encompassed by the bare description that you killed each animal,” he said.

“You used weapons extensively in the course of your activity – including knives, wooden clubs, pliers, bolt cutters, hacksaws and axes.”

The “clear and unalloyed pleasure” that Britton derived from inflicting torture was “sickeningly evident” from videos uncovered during the investigation, the judge said.

Britton was also banned from buying, or living with, any mammal but because he was charged under Northern Territory (NT) local law, the restriction only applies while he remains in the region.

Charles Giliam, operations manager at the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty of Animals, said the case showed Australia urgently needed to introduce cross-border legislation so that animal bans were recognised across states and territories.

Britton’s lawyer told the NT Supreme Court that a lifetime ban on all animal contact would be “extreme” given his offending was “limited to a particular type of animal”.

Breaking his silence for the first time since his arrest in 2022, Britton said he was “ashamed” and would seek treatment for his sexual interest in dogs.

“I take full responsibility for the demeaning crimes that I perpetrated on dogs,” he wrote in a letter to the court.

“I deeply regret the pain and trauma that I caused to innocent animals and consequently to my family, friends and members of the community that I affected.

“I now acknowledge that I’ve been fighting a rare paraphilic disorder for much of my life and that shame and fear prevented me from seeking the proper help I needed.”

He added that “no amount of words can convey how sorry and ashamed I am”, adding that he would seek “long-term treatment” on his path to “redemption”.

“Please give my family the space they deserve to heal, they were not aware or involved in any way,” the letter read.

‘Devious and careful premeditation and planning’

Britton grew up in West Yorkshire and obtained a PhD at the University of Bristol before moving to Australia where he met his wife, a fellow scientist. The couple settled in the Northern Territory, where he became a respected academic at the Charles Darwin University.

In public, he was an expert on saltwater crocodiles and appeared on television with celebrities including Sir David and Bear Grylls.

Online, however, Britton was “Monster” and “Cerberus” – the provider of images so sickening they would later traumatise investigators and lead a judge to recommend clerks and security leave a courtroom to avoid seeing the “unspeakable” acts.

“I have no emotional bond to them, they are toys pure and simple,” he told online followers under his alias, about his images of beaten dogs and puppies, “and plenty more where they came from.”

Police said Britton would wait for his wife to be away on field trips, before taking dogs and puppies into a “torture room” he set up in a shipping container next to their rural home near Darwin.

There, he would film himself raping and then beating the dogs to death. Most of the 42 animals he abused he had been given for free from online classifieds site Gumtree after promising their previous owners he would give them a “good home”.

“Your modus operandi was one of devious and careful premeditation and planning, the individuals from whom you procured these dogs thought they were going to a good home and that they would be protected,” the judge said on Thursday.

“You took videos of the grotesque harm you were inflicting on these animals, you revisited those videos for your own sexual gratification and you shared them for the gratification of other deviants.

“The fact that you staged each of these remorseless killings as a production further reinforces the meticulous level of your planning.”

Two dogs he attacked – Swiss Shepherds Bolt and Ursa – were the pets he shared with his wife.

It’s understood she was disgusted when the crimes were uncovered and has since moved towns, changing her name to avoid any association with the case while continuing to work to promote animal welfare.

‘Sheer delight you took in the torture of these animals’

Britton often filmed his crimes and sent them to “like-minded” people online and through messaging service Telegram, the court heard. At other times, he would drive the animals to a secluded location and murder them “for his own sadistic sexual pleasure”.

Police arrested Britton in 2022 after piecing together clues in a video sent to an animal welfare agency. A raid on his property uncovered severed dog limbs, a dog’s head and a decomposing puppy. A laptop found at the home featured child abuse images.

Britton was charged with a string of offences relating to bestiality, animal abuse and possession of child abuse material, for crimes dating between 2020 and 2022 – but police believe his offending started much earlier.

One of the messages from ‘Monster’ that formed part of the case, read: “I started fence jumping when I was 13 or 14 and molesting horses.”

Justice Grant said he believed Britton was “likely to commit a further offence in respect of an animal and that risk will continue to present unless you are subjected to effective psychotherapy and antilibidinal treatment”.

“I’m less ready to accept that you are genuinely remorseful, that is particularly so having regard to the sheer delight you took in the torture of these animals and the persistence of your conduct,” he said.

“And what appears to be your continuing view that sexual interactions with animals short of sadism isn’t harmful.”

Mr Giliam of the RSPCA likened the NT’s animal cruelty laws to “a slap on the wrist with a wet bus ticket” as he noted the maximum sentence for each offence was two years.

“Just about everybody knows his name now – the abhorrence and the disgust is just palpable,” he told The Telegraph.

Outside court, protesters holding placards lamented that Britton could be out of jail within four years after time already served since his arrest.

“You’ll be dead before then,” they yelled.