EXCLUSIVE
WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
A zoologist who filmed himself raping and torturing dogs reveals he stripped naked, rolled in mud and had sex with his own pets for the first time after a roaring fight with his ex-wife, psychology reports reveal.
British crocodile expert Adam Britton, 53, was sentenced to 10 years behind bars in the Northern Territory Supreme Court in August after pleading guilty to 63 charges of bestiality, animal cruelty, and possessing child abuse material.
He sourced more than 42 dogs from Gumtree Australia over a two-year period for the sole purpose of torturing them to death on camera, but told the previous owners their beloved pets were alive and thriving.
In 2022, police raided the McMinns Lagoon property, near Darwin, that he shared with his biologist ex-wife, Erin, who spent a lot of time away for work and had no idea what he was doing.
Now, Daily Mail Australia has obtained comprehensive psychological reports which shed light on his childhood sexual assault, the complete breakdown of his marriage, his descent into zoosadism, and he relief he felt once police caught him.
They also reveal his life behind bars – what Erin said when visited him in custody, the fortnightly visits from her parents, the letters from his mother in England, getting punched in the head on Boxing Day, and inmates throwing stones at him.
The reports, tendered to the court ahead of his sentencing, were written by forensic psychologists between January and July, based on hours of conversations with Britton.
Before his deranged habits were uncovered, Adam Britton (pictured during an interview with Triple J) was a well-respected zoologist and crocodile expert
Adam Britton’s ex-wife Erin broke her silence in an episode of 60 Minutes (pictured)
I wanted to be a horse…
Britton told experts that he was particularly interested in animals from the age of six, but it ramped up at 13 when he was sexually assaulted by an 18-year-old boy during a school trip to France.
‘I spent the entire trip back [from France] hating people,’ he told psychologists.
‘All I can remember is that I didn’t want to be a person anymore. I wanted to be an animal. I wanted to be away from all of this.’
Even as a young boy, he found humans ‘disgusting’ and wanted to become an animal.
‘I wanted to be an animal. I wanted to turn into a horse. I was going horseback riding every week. I fell in love with horses … It became this mantra, “I want to be a horse”,’ he said.
‘It seems crazy to talk about it, but that’s where I was.’
He would sneak into horse paddocks near his parents’ house to hug them, eat their hair and saliva.
‘I thought that would incorporate into my body and I would become a horse. I hadn’t gotten to that point in my schooling about DNA. This is what I wanted,’ he said.
Part of his attraction to animals and, specifically, excrement was linked to the disgust he had for his own body.
Adam Britton (centre) with his wife Erin (left) and David Attenborough (right) during filming for a BBC documentary
Marriage breakdown
Britton met Erin in 2001 when he was working at a crocodile park in the Northern Territory – he had moved from the UK to take the offer and it was his dream job.
‘I was in seventh heaven’ he said.
She was a volunteer at the park. They didn’t click immediately, but found they had a shared passion for animals and conservation. They married in 2004, but the relationship declined over the next decade.
A core issue, according to the reports, was his lack of sexual interest in humans and his limited experience with romantic relationships due to his consuming attraction to animals.
Eventually, the couple fought, slept in separate beds, and spent long periods of time away from each other.
By 2014, Britton said he had a depressive episode due to his relationship struggles, financial difficulties, and the recent death of his father – when he and Erin had a major argument.
She got in the car and drove off.
He told experts: ‘I went outside, took my clothes off, jumped in this muddy puddle and started rolling around in it. Like I wanted to be an animal.’
When his two Swiss Shepherds ran over to see what he was doing, they unknowingly started performing sex acts on him. Britton said he felt something ‘click’ in his mind and liked the idea of himself as an animal.
While feeling disgusted with himself at first, he did it again a few months later and eventually incorporated bestiality into his everyday life while his ex-wife was away.
Adam Britton and his ex-wife, Erin, are pictured together on their wedding day
Britton also repeatedly raped his Swiss Shepherds, Ursa and Bolt (pictured). They now live with Erin’s parents
Animal abuse
Britton joined groups on Telegram, an encrypted messaging app, to meet other twisted perverts like him. Prior to that, he felt as though he was the only person in the world with sick fantasies about animals.
He operated two Telegram accounts between 2020 and 2022 under the names ‘Monster’ and ‘Cerberus’ – the latter being a three-headed dog in Greek mythology.
It was in these conversations that he spoke freely about his disturbing bestiality fantasies that began when he was a school-aged boy growing up in England.
One conversation took place between August and December 2021, with a Telegram user called ‘Gorvaged’ who Britton described as a ‘close friend’ due to their shared obsession.
‘I remember being sadistic to small animals when I was maybe seven or eight, and I repressed it but it really started to come back out again in my fantasies in my 20s and 30s,’ Britton said, under the pseudonym ‘Monster’.
Those conversations formed a large part of the evidence against him by prosecutors, but Britton told experts those messages were ‘misinterpreted’.
‘I made up this character Monster. I was playing this character. I wouldn’t use punctuation properly, which I would never do. I would use ‘f**k’, I would play this character which is what the other people wanted,’ he said.
‘I was trying to impress these people and turn them on. I didn’t have any interest in being sadistic to animals as a kid. I loved animals. I loved them way more than people.’
He said other users would tell him to harm dogs and he complied because he wanted to ‘help people out’, and one user in particular threatened to publish his personal details on the internet.
During sentencing, NT Chief Justice Michael Grant found no evidence of blackmail. Prosecutors told the court the footage of Britton torturing dogs was partly so disturbing due to the ‘sheer joy’ he appeared to get from the ordeal.
Pictured: A Telegram conversation Britton had with a likeminded person
Pictured: A mock-up of a conversation Britton had with Telegram user, Gorvaged, in 2021
Britton told the psychologist he tortured and killed dogs to keep the Telegram user happy.
‘I don’t like letting people down. And I didn’t let this guy down, so I ended up doing what he wanted me to do,’ he said.
‘Basically, I ended up destroying everything I ever stood for.’
During his two-year killing spree, one puppy escaped his clutches and ran away into the bush, while another somehow managed to get away and very likely survived.
Britton saw these escapes as ‘failures’ and told his friends online the escaped dogs had died to ‘save face’.
‘I was interested in talking to people about their sexual arousal and sexual feelings towards animals and what made them interested in it and why … I went onto Telegram to talk about that,’ he said.
‘I got sidetracked into basically trying to keep people happy. I think the first thing they asked me was, “Do you have any content?”, “Well, have you made any content?” “Yes, I’ve made some stuff with my dogs?” “Can we see it?”.
‘I did it to try to keep him happy … I guess that was the driver, that sexual curiosity with it was the driver. You don’t realise what’s happening until you’re actually there, and now you’re looking at animal torture videos.’
He said the abuse got to a point where he thought about jumping into the saltwater crocodile enclosure on his property and ending his life, and felt relieved once he was arrested.
‘[One of the overriding feelings I had after my arrest was, “Thank f*** this is all over”. The silver lining for all this was that this was over,’ he said.
Adam Britton was sentenced to 10 years and five months in jail with a non-parole period of six years, backdated to his April 2022 arrest
Pictured is the now abandoned compound where Britton carried out his obscene acts
Erin’s visit
Britton told psychologists that his then-wife, Erin, visited him once in prison shortly after his arrest in 2022.
He said: ‘She came in to see me at the prison and she was obviously extremely upset. She couldn’t understand why I’d done any of this stuff.’
According to Britton, she said: ‘I could have accepted the zoophile’ … I can’t accept the animal cruelty.’
He added: ‘She was at the point where she said, “I want to support you. I need to support you during this”.
‘There was no immediate desire to break things up. I was fairly pessimistic that the relationship was going to last very long.’
He believes she went away and spoke to some friends who told her to leave the relationship.
On August 10, 2023, she said ‘I don’t want to talk to you anymore’ and ended their marriage.
‘I told her I loved her, she said, “No, you’re not allowed to say you love me anymore”. We haven’t talked since. She doesn’t want people to mention my name to her anymore.
‘She doesn’t want my in-laws to tell me any news about what’s happening with her at all … It has to be said my initial reaction was great sadness followed by relief. Almost like a weight lifted off my shoulders.’
Britton said his relationship ‘contributed to what happened to me’.
He said Erin’s parents visited him every fortnight. Daily Mail Australia previously revealed they did see him behind bars, but it is understood they stopped once they learned the true extent of his abuse against animals.
Adam Britton is pictured (right) at his McMinns Lagoon property with Erin’s parents, Barbara and Leslie
Life behind bars…
Britton told experts the negative media coverage of his crimes meant many of his friends stopped speaking to him.
He receives emails from his mother, his sister has ceased contact, his best friend – a priest in Scotland – stopped contacting him, and inmates throw stones at him.
One prisoner thought Britton was a paedophile and punched him twice in the head on Boxing Day in 2022.
Britton was charged with possession of child abuse material but psychologists found that he was not sexually interested in children. Telegram users sent him the material, but he didn’t solicit more.
One of his biggest issues in jail is the boredom, he said. He was denied access to various books and magazines because they contain pictures of animals, and is confined to his cell most of the time.
In October 2023, there were reports that a collection of confiscated multiple magazines, books, stamps, drawings, newspaper clippings articles containing images of animals were found in his cell.
He told experts: ‘I basically just torpedoed my entire life. My reputation. I’m not sure that I can rescue anything when I get out of here.’
Britton also said he would like to atone for his actions, eventually, by helping animals.
Justice Grant banned him from owning a mammal for the remainder of his natural life.
