Students jailed for ‘sadistic’ fireworks attack on sheep

Two students who filmed themselves killing a sheep and then lighting fireworks in its corpse have been jailed.

Oakley Hollands, 20, laughed and shouted “kill it, kill it” as he videoed Leighton Ashby, 22, kicking the ewe to death at Ditchling Beacon during a brutal 30-minute attack.

Today, the pair’s family sobbed as Judge Jeremy Gold jailed them at Hove Crown Court.

He said: “Quite what satisfaction you could deserve from chasing sheep is difficult to understand but you caught a lamb, a Romsey ewe, which you then kicked and beat to death for your own perverse satisfaction.

“The suffering caused to the animal is graphically portrayed in your footage that you took during the attack.

“Ashby carried out most of the violence while Hollands filmed it, presumably so you could both remind yourself of what you had done and show it to others who you thought might be interested or impressed.

“As though that wasn’t enough, you decided to insert fireworks into the lamb to cause further suffering and mutilation of this innocent creature.

“The fact that you both come from farming backgrounds and were studying at Plumpton at the time makes your callous and frankly sadistic behaviour all the more alarming and difficult to comprehend.”

He sentenced Ashby to two years in prison and Hollands to 20 months in a young offenders institution and banned both from caring for animals for ten years.

The court heard the pair had invited two other students from Plumpton College up to the downs in November 2023 to see a dead badger.

Prosecuting, Jordan Franks said: “Their friends thought that they were trying to catch a sheep to look at it and play with it all four sat with it. The sheep seemed relatively calm – but shortly after the mood started to change.”

After Ashby, of Beckett Road, Ashford, Kent, beat its head against a fence post and repeatedly kicked and punched it, the sheep finally died. Hollands, of Mussenden Lane, Horton Kirby, Kent, filmed several clips of the attack.

The pair then lit powerful fireworks in its mouth and elsewhere in its body – filming more clips of the damage after they’d been detonated.

Mr Franks said: “They took a great deal of pleasure in the suffering they caused to the animal.”

The witnesses, named as Henry Savell and Leila Goodwin-Crisell at an earlier hearing, were horrified and reported the pair.

The video clips were shared with police, and the sheep’s ear tags were later found in a Monster can hidden in the cistern of the college’s communal toilets.

Another video was found on Hollands’ phone of him cutting a fox in half. Mr Franks said Hollands’ then boss, a farmer,had since provided a statement saying he had asked Hollands to cut up a dead fox so its body could be dragged across his fields.

Mr Franks also read a community impact statement written by DC Ben Herriott, the officer in the case, who said multiple people had written to the CPS and the police about the case, all of whom the CPS was attempting to reply to. All were provided to the court in an 80-page dossier.

All spoke of the “complete and utter shock and disgust at the level of violence used against the defenceless animal.”

Some spoke of a “mistrust in people who work with animals daily” and others feared the defendants would move on to harm humans.

A common theme was that animals don’t have the opportunity to have a voice in cases like these – and that “this was a life that was taken and not simply someone’s property.”

Defending Ashby, Laurence Harris provided another letter from a member of the public sent to Ashby’s family containing threats.

He said: “This was entirely out of character for this defendant, who went into farming with the family business and who to this day retains a deep desire to be around animals.

“There’s no evidence before your honour to find that this was anything but an isolate incident, serious as it was.”

He said a probation officer’s assessment that Ashby showed little remorse was made without the knowledge of his subsequent diagnosis with autism, which affects his ability to express himself.

Defending Hollands, Caroline Baker asked the judge to consider the filming of the incident as simply a feature of how young people constantly document their lives in the modern age and not as evidence of a sadistic pleasure in the sheep’s suffering.

She said: “Although there’s been an understandable public backlash, I invite your honour to treat that with caution and not to consider it aggravates the harm caused.

“When confronted with the video evidence, my client was incredibly remorseful and emotional. The shame he feels is genuine.”