Darwin council leash brings down Adam Britton’s horrific dog killing operation
Pre-eminent croc expert Adam Britton was careful to cover the tracks of his sadistic bestiality and dog killing operation. Here’s how a free council leash led police to his door. WARNING: DISTRESSING.
Northern Territory
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A free City of Darwin dog leash and an anonymous internet sleuth have led to the downfall of one of the most horrific bestiality and pet-killing plots seen in Australia.
Pre-eminent croc expert Adam Robert Corden Britton, 52, this week pleaded guilty to 60 counts of bestiality, animal cruelty, and possessing child exploitation material charges.
His offending involved sadistically torturing and killing at least 39 dogs in the greater Darwin region, most of which he sourced via Gumtree ads by promising a “forever home” to owners needing to give up their pets.
Signs of Britton’s sadistic sexual interest in animals were there from a young age, the court heard.
“I always had it in me, 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,” Britton wrote under the alias “Monster” on an encrypted Telegram messenger thread he used to share videos and chat to others interested in “zoo-sadism”.
He told an anonymous user he remembered “being sadistic to small animals” aged seven or eight, with his interest turning sexual at age 12 while growing up in Yorkshire in the UK.
“I started fence jumping when I was 13 or 14 and molesting horses,” he said.
“I repressed it but it really started to come back out again in my fantasies in my 20s and 30s.”
Britton moved to the Top End after graduating from the University of Bristol in 1996 with a PhD in zoology.
Once in the Territory he became a leading name in crocodile research, working with the likes of Steve Irwin and David Attenborough, featuring on National Geographic and the BBC, and running a successful consulting business with his former wife.
Along with several pet salties on his McMinns Lagoon property, Britton had a shipping container he called his “torture room” where he would often film himself raping, torturing and killing dogs.
The court heard Britton would edit and crop the recordings, blacking out identifying features that could be traced back to him before sharing them on his “Monster” and “Cerberus” Telegram accounts.
But on March 22 last year an anonymous Gmail user sent a tip to the Northern Territory Animal Welfare Branch after spotting a Darwin council “Great Pets Start With You” orange leash in a video online.
The video titled ‘1Bitch9Pups’ showed Britton sexually exploiting, torturing and killing one adult female dog and at least eight puppies.
Under the banner of Operation Haine, investigators from animal welfare, the NT Joint Anti-Child Exploitation Team and Australian Federal Police narrowed in on Britton, resulting in an early morning raid at his home exactly a month later.
A search of the residence resulted in 44 items being seized including computers, mobile phones, cameras, external hard drives, tools, weapons, dog paraphernalia and sex toys.
Detectives also discovered severed dog limbs in a freezer, a decomposing puppy in a pond, and a severed dog head on a neighbouring property.
Britton was arrested at the scene and will return to court for sentencing submissions on December 13.
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Originally published as Darwin council leash brings down Adam Britton’s horrific dog killing operation
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