A man who believed drinking blood would help him live forever has been detained in hospital after dumping animal carcasses outside churches in the New Forest.
Details of the offences
Benjamin Lewis, 48, targeted churches across Hampshire by leaving the bodies of lambs and deer at entrances and inside places of worship, causing widespread distress among parishioners and local farming families. Some of the animals had been stolen from nearby farms before being killed.
Lewis admitted causing religiously aggravated intentional harassment, alarm or distress, along with the theft of lambs. At an earlier hearing, Lewis, from Totton, near Southampton, identified himself in court as "Count Dracula".
Sentencing and detention
Judge William Mousley KC ordered that Lewis be detained in hospital for treatment. He will remain there unless a mental health tribunal or the Justice Secretary decides it is safe for him to be released.
Appearing via video link from hospital after sentencing, Lewis apologised to those affected and said he held no ill feeling towards the officers who investigated him.
Investigation and background
PC Jessica Surman, of Hampshire Police, described the investigation as unlike anything she had dealt with before. "It's one where you think you have reached the end of the bizarreness and then something else happens and throws a curveball into the mix." She said Lewis believed drinking blood would stop him from dying. "And if he drinks it enough he won't go to hell, he won't die and he will become a vampire."
Police launched an investigation after dead lambs and deer repeatedly began appearing outside churches. Officers eventually identified a pattern in the incidents and even monitored churches on dates considered significant in the satanic calendar. Lewis was eventually arrested after forensic officers matched his DNA to the remains of a lamb.
When officers searched his home, they found sketches of vampires, notes about rituals and references to drinking blood.
The court heard the offences took place between February and August last year, although concerns about Lewis's behaviour stretched back several years. Consultant psychiatrist Dr Gauruv Malhan told the court Lewis has "complex mental health difficulties" and warned there was concern he could pose a risk beyond animals.
Andrew Price, defending, said Lewis was remorseful and accepted he had done wrong. Lewis has previously been jailed. In 2003, he was imprisoned after terrorising a local vicar and his family by claiming he was a vampire.
