Two agricultural students who launched a “sadistic” attack on a sheep, which included placing fireworks inside its mouth and body, have been jailed. Leighton Ashby, 22, and Oakley Hollands, 20, filmed the 30-minute attack on a mobile phone and kept the sheep’s ear tag as a “token”, which was later hidden inside a Monster energy can and discovered inside a communal toilet.
The duo, who were enrolled at Plumpton Agricultural College, pleaded guilty to causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal. Ashby was sentenced to two years behind bars, while Hollands received a 20-month sentence at a youth offender institution. Hove Trial Centre heard that the two men had invited two fellow students to see a “dead badger” on the evening of 2 November 2023.
After arriving at a field near Ditchling Beacon, Ashby and Hollands began to chase a sheep, eventually pinning it to the ground. Ashby began “swinging it from side to side” and kicked the sheep around five times to its head and torso. When the other witnesses wanted to leave, Hollands refused and began to film the incident. Explosive devices were then inserted into the mouth and anus of the animal, leaving it severely mutilated with fatal injuries.
Analysis of their phones found other disturbing materials, including footage of a dead fox being dismembered and a badger being kicked. Prosecutor Jordan Franks described their actions as exhibiting a “worrying pattern in the mutilation and destruction of animals”. Sentencing them, Judge Jeremy Gold KC said: “The ordeal suffered by that defenceless animal is graphically portrayed on the video footage that you took during the attack.”
