Adam Britton: Zoologist’s ‘gross depravity’ unlikely to ever be cured says psychologist in bestiality case

WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT

The depraved zoologist who filmed himself raping, torturing and killing dozens of dogs is unlikely to ever be cured of his “chronic and longstanding paraphilia” even with intensive sex offender treatment.

This month Adam Robert Corden Britton was convicted and sentenced in the Northern Territory Supreme Court for dozens of offences including sickening bestiality, animal cruelty, killing dogs and possessing child exploitation material.

Chief Justice Michael Grant has now published his sentencing remarks which detail Britton’s “grotesque depravity and cruelty towards animals” in horrific detail.

Amid the graphic descriptions of Britton’s offending — which Justice Grant warns has the potential to cause “nervous shock or some other adverse psychological reaction” — he found the pre-eminent crocodile expert poses a high risk of reoffending upon release from prison.

The Crown and defence psychiatrists agree that Britton’s paraphilic disorders include zoophilia, which is sexual attraction to animals; zoophilic scopophilia, which is recurrent and intense sexual arousal involving animal faeces; zoophilic urophilia, which is recurrent and intense sexual arousal involving urine; and zoosadism, which is sexual pleasure derived from cruelty to animals.

A psychiatrist’s report indicated that given the exclusivity of Britton’s preference and the severity of his condition, it will remain an ongoing chronic and longstanding paraphilia even with sex offender treatment.

Research suggests that severe paraphilic conditions of this nature cannot be cured.

“The severity of your paraphilic conditions warrants the rating of a moderately high to high risk that you will commit acts of sexual violence in the future,” Justice Grant said.

“To paraphrase your own words during your unguarded messaging, although you were slow to start acting on your perversion, once you did you loved it, you could not stop doing it and, moreover, you did not want to stop doing it.

“For these reasons, I consider that any assessment of your risk of re-offending and your prospects of rehabilitation must be guarded and conditional.”

Justice Grant also found that Britton, from northern England, fantasised exclusively about animals and had no sexual interest in people despite being with his wife for more than two decades.

The sheer deviancy and brutality of your conduct is not satisfactorily encompassed by the bare description that you killed each animal intending to cause its death. Your conduct involved so much more than that.

Britton, who holds a doctoral degree in zoology, moved to Australia after securing a position with a crocodile research farm in Darwin, where he worked as a research officer for almost 10 years.

He met his former wife Erin in 2001 while she was working as a volunteer at the farm.

They established a relationship, purchased a rural property — on which these offences were committed — and eventually married in 2006.

Around that time he started his own business as a crocodile specialist working on research projects, consultancy, training and related activities.

He went on to establish himself as a crocodile expert of some standing.

A psychiatrist’s report said that prior to meeting his wife, Britton had a very limited relationship history.

“Your ability to form normal sexual relationships was obviously impaired by your various paraphilias which I will go on to describe, and your attendant sexual interests and preferences,” Justice Grant said during sentencing.

“As I have already recorded, you met your former wife in 2001. You attempted to establish a sexual relationship with her but those attempts were obviously hampered by your unorthodox sexual preferences.

“Sexual intercourse with your wife was not something you enjoyed and was extremely sporadic as a result. The relationship eventually became entirely platonic and asexual in nature.”

The “gross depravity and perversity” of Britton’s offending were set out in exhaustive and disturbing detail in the Crown facts and graphically depicted in recordings and images that were tendered in court.

Justice Grant said that Britton was aged between 49 and 51 when he committed the offences as a “mature and well-educated man”.

From as early as 2014, Britton began engaging in inappropriate and sexualised behaviours with his own pet Swiss Shepherd dogs.

As his conduct with his pet dogs escalated, he began recording it for the purpose of disseminating it online.

On at least 23 separate occasions between 20 June 2020 and December 2021, he filmed himself sexually abusing and torturing the dogs.

Between November 2020 and April 2022, Britton sourced 42 dogs — through the Gumtree marketplace — which he “tortured and sexually exploited for his sadistic sexual pleasure”.

“That conduct culminated in the intentional killing of at least 39 of those animals,” Justice Grant said.

“You used a shipping container on your rural property as a location for the torture, sexual exploitation and killing of some of those dogs.”

Britton also frequented a number of secluded locations where he sexually abused, tortured and killed dogs.

He used mobile phones and cameras mounted on tripods to film and record his activity, often from multiple angles, on each occasion.

Britton used two accounts on the encrypted messaging service Telegram to communicate with other perverts about animal cruelty and their mutual sexual interest in molesting, torturing and killing animals.

He used Telegram to upload images and videos depicting bestiality, acts of torture and the infliction of extreme violence and cruelty of animals, and promote and incite violence against animals.

But before doing so, he edited the images and videos to obscure his face and any other items that could be traced back to him or his location.

However, in March 2022, an unknown person anonymously sent one of the videos to the animal welfare authorities which depicted a person sexually exploiting, torturing and killing one adult dog and nine puppies.

The adult dog featured in the video was wearing a Darwin City Council lead.

The matter was referred to police who ultimately identified Britton’s residence.

In April 2022, police executed a search warrant at his property where they seized 44 items related to his criminal activity including computers, phones and cameras.

They also found severed dog limbs in a freezer, a decomposing puppy carcass and a severed dog’s head.

Police also located a laptop that contained 15 child abuse material files, some of which were of the worst category.

Britton was arrested that day and has been in custody ever since.

“The recordings which you made of your activities prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that you committed the 39 offences … by inflicting cruelty on 39 separate dogs, intending to cause the death of each of those animals,” Justice Grant said.

“Your conduct on each of those occasions involved a degree of depravity and reprehensibility which falls entirely outside any ordinary human conception and comprehension.

“What is also manifestly clear from that post is the perverse pleasure and excitement you derived from the suffering of these animals.”

Justice Grant said Britton’s conduct fell within the worst category of offending of this type.

“On each occasion the violence inflicted on these animals was severely and usually prolonged,” he said.

“The suffering of these animals was indescribable.

“The sheer deviancy and brutality of your conduct is not satisfactorily encompassed by the bare description that you killed each animal intending to cause its death. Your conduct involved so much more than that.”

Justice Grant said Britton’s modus operandi was one of “devious and careful premeditation and planning”.

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

“I also have no doubt that you would have continued with this conduct had you not been arrested by police.

“You had no intention of stopping and you would not otherwise have stopped.”

For the 63 offences, Britton was jailed for a total period of 10 years and 5 months — backdated from the date of his arrest — with a six-year non-parole period.

Justice Grant also ordered that Britton must never buy, acquire or own any mammal — or have any mammal in or on his premises — ever again.