Former BBC zoologist Adam Britton jailed for ten years for raping dogs

A crocodile expert and former BBC zoologist who filmed himself raping and torturing dogs has been jailed for more than 10 years in Australia for what a judge condemned as ‘inconceivable depravity’. 

Adam Robert Corden Britton was sentenced in Darwin Supreme Court on Thursday having pleaded guilty to 56 offences related to the torture and sexual exploitation of more than 42 dogs on his rural property.

The 53-year-old, who was born in West Yorkshire and earned a PhD in zoology from Bristol University before emigrating to Australia, was sentenced to 10 years and five months with a non-parole period of six years, backdated to his April 2022 arrest.

Chief Justice Michael Grant also ordered that the once-respected academic be banned from owning or having on his property mammal-type animals for the term of his natural life.

Before delivering the sentence, Justice Grant warned the public gallery that he would have to describe details of Britton’s offences that included ‘grotesque cruelty toward animals’ and told the British-born academic: ‘Your depravity falls outside any ordinary human conception’.

Members of the public gallery sobbed and gasped as the details of Britton’s extensive and violent offending, resulting in the deaths of 39 dogs, including nine puppies, were read out.

Britton stood in the dock wearing a black suit with grey shirt and did not visibly react to Justice Grant’s sentencing remarks.

Britton began offending in 2014, sexually abusing his own pet dogs – Swiss Shepherds Ursa and Bolt – in a secret ‘torture room’ constructed on his rural property in McMinns Lagoon near the city of Darwin. 

He continued until his arrest in April 2022 after a video of his vile acts, which he had shared online, was provided to Australia’s Northern Territory animal welfare authorities. 

An anonymous internet user noticed a female dog in one of his horrific videos was wearing an orange City of Darwin leash with the slogan, ‘great pets start with you’.

That tip-off enabled investigators to track down where the dog was adopted from – and by whom. 

The agreed facts stated Britton extensively filmed his offending in his so-called ‘torture room’ and shared videos online under pseudonyms while encouraging others to commit similar offences and offering ‘how to’ advice.

‘Your sheer and unalloyed pleasure is sickeningly evident from the recorded material,’ Justice Grant said.

As well as torturing his dogs that he had raised, Britton bought sought canines featured in Gumtree Australia ‘free to good home’ adverts from unsuspecting owners in the Darwin region.

Britton was also sentenced for possessing and transmitting ‘the worst category’ of child sexual abuse material. 

The British citizen was a prominent crocodile expert and a senior researcher at Charles Darwin University – a post which afforded him the opportunity to host the likes of world-famous broadcaster and biologist David Attenborough while he filmed the BBC’s Life in Cold Blood docuseries.

None of his offending is alleged to have been against the reptiles.

The zoologist kept his twisted double life and depraved fantasies from his wife Erin for years. 

Erin, a wildlife ranger who once met Prince Harry and helped him catch a crocodile, has reportedly changed her surname since learning of her husband’s crimes.

During Britton’s trial, prosecutors told the court he maintained several accounts on the Telegram messaging app – one which he used to engage with ‘like-minded people’, and another which was used to disseminate images and recordings of the abuse.

‘Using these applications, the offender discussed his ”kill count”,’ the prosecutor told the court. His account had 114 threads where he described how he acquired the pets and how he abused them. 

The court learned how Britton once told a Telegram user of his violent compulsions: ‘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.’

Britton sourced other dogs from Gumtree Australia from unsuspecting owners in the Darwin region.

The court previously heard he built rapport with the owners and negotiated taking custody of their pets, many of whom reluctantly gave their pets away due to travel or work commitments. 

He would tell pet owners on Gumtree that his old dog had died of cancer and he wanted a ‘new family member’ in order to make them have pity on him and sell them their dog, the court heard.

If the pet owners reached out and asked Britton how their old dog was doing, he would spin a ‘false narrative’ to say they were healthy and even send them old photos – when in reality their pet was already dead.

In one scenario, Britton sent a message to the owners of a large brown dog named Wolfe to reassure them the animal was ‘settling in well’. The prosecutor told the court that dog Wolfe had already been ‘sexually exploited, tortured and killed’.

Following his arrest in 2022, police seized 44 items including computers, mobile telephones, cameras, external hard drives, tools and weapons during a raid of his home. They also found 15 child abuse material files on his laptop.

But Britton’s sentence was met with outrage by animal rights activists in Australia.

Emma Hurst, who is an MP for the Animal Justice Party in New South Wales, slammed the sentence as ‘pathetically weak’.

‘These were horrific acts of animal cruelty,’ Ms Hurst said.

‘There is a well-researched link between violence towards animals and violence towards people. 

‘This man is a danger to other animals and the community. I am relieved to hear his sentence includes time behind bars – that’s where a man like this belongs – but it is not long enough.’

Britton’s barrister, who has asked not to be named because she has been subject to personal abuse and threats for representing him, had argued a lifetime ban on all animal ownership was an ‘extreme measure’.

She argued Britton should be allowed to own or live with any creatures other than ‘mammals’ and the ban should not last a lifetime because of the ‘reasonable prospects of rehabilitation’.

But she also read the court an apology that she claimed had been penned by her client.

‘I take full responsibility for the demeaning crimes that I perpetrated on dogs,’ Britton said.

‘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 let you all down and I’m truly sorry.

‘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.’

Britton said ‘no amount of words can convey how sorry and ashamed I am, nor undo what I did’ but he was ‘determined to prove I am better than this’.

‘I will seek long-term treatment and find a path towards redemption,’ his letter read.

‘Please give my family the space they deserve to heal, they were not aware or involved in any way.’

Paraphilia is defined as having persistent and recurrent sexual interests, urges, fantasies, or behaviours of marked intensity involving objects, activities, or even situations that are atypical in nature.