EXCLUSIVE, WARNING: Graphic content 

Internet sleuths helped take down a once-respected crocodile expert who filmed himself raping, torturing, and murdering dogs after successfully identifying a leash in an abuse video he posted online. 

Adam Robert Corden Britton, 52, pleaded guilty in Darwin’s Supreme Court on Monday to a string of charges relating to animal abuse, bestiality, and for the possession of child exploitation material.

The court heard Britton sourced about 42 dogs on Gumtree, often from owners who reluctantly gave their pets away due to work commitments. This was solely for the purpose of sexually exploiting them for his own sadistic pleasure.

Britton operated two Telegram accounts called ‘monster’ and ‘Cerberus’ – the latter being a three-headed dog in Greek mythology – between 2020 and 2022. 

Britton used the accounts to engage with like-minded people about animal cruelty and bestiality.

However, he was the master of his own undoing when he posted a disturbing video called ‘1B***h9Pups’ to an abuse website on March 22, 2022.

The following day, an anonymous internet user noticed the adult female dog was wearing an orange City of Darwin leash with the slogan ‘great pets start with you’.

They referred the footage to the NT Animal Welfare Branch via Gmail, which then referred the matter to police.

On April 22, a month after Britton posted the video online, NT Police and Australian Federal Police raided his McMinns Lagoon home, in Darwin’s south.

Detectives seized computers, mobile  phones, cameras, external hard drives, tools, weapons, dog paraphernalia and sex toys. 

They also found severed dog limbs in a freezer, a decomposing puppy in a pond on the property, and a severed dog head on a neighbouring property.

Britton was eventually charged with 37 counts of animal cruelty, 10 counts of raping or attempting to rape a dog, and four counts of possessing or transmitting child abuse material.

The video and descriptions of his abuse are so disturbing Daily Mail Australia has chosen not to publish it.

The court also heard he sexually abused his own Swiss Shepherd pets, Ursa and Bolt, for almost a decade until he eventually took to Gumtree to source more dogs to kill.

After pleading guilty to all charges on Monday, Chief Justice Michael Grant warned the press gallery that the facts of the offending detailed ‘acts that could only be described as grotesque cruelty which are both confronting and distressing’. 

‘Which in my assessment have the potential to cause nervous shock or some other adverse psychological reaction to a person exposed to those details,’ he said. 

Britton was charged last year, but his name was suppressed by the courts to ensure media attention would not bias a jury against him.

The order was lifted after his pleaded guilty on Monday.

His matter is set to return to court on December 13 for sentencing submissions.