A depraved Liverpool man has been jailed for sharing horrific videos showing the torture of baby monkeys.
Peter Stanley, 42, of Dovecot Avenue, Liverpool, admitted three offences of publishing an obscene article when he appeared at Liverpool Magistrates' Court on 20 August 2024.
Publishing an obscene article is an offence under section 2 of the Obscene Publications Act 1959. The maximum penalty is a fine of £100 and/or 26 weeks' custody on summary conviction; 5 years' custody and/or an unlimited fine on conviction on indictment.
Stanley was sentenced to 20 months' custody at Liverpool Crown Court on Wednesday, 25th September 2024.
The court heard that Stanley uploaded videos showing the torture of baby long-tailed macaques to a private Facebook group with a focus on the intentional harming of wild animals. The group has since been closed down.
The videos were spotted by a member of an animal rights group, who had infiltrated the Facebook group with a view to gathering evidence of wrongdoing. Stanley's videos were reported to the police, who were provided with a number of screenshots of his comments of approval in relation to their content.
The police were able to trace the videos back to Stanley's home address, which was subsequently searched under warrant. Police seized a number of items including a mobile phone, which contained 75 similar monkey-torture videos including one of those that had been uploaded to the Facebook group.
Analysis of Stanley's devices confirmed that he had been performing web searches on terms including "how to tell if a monkey is distressed" and "horse porn".
Stanley was arrested and interviewed by the police. During the interview he admitted that he had joined the Facebook group and was required to upload three videos to prove that he had a genuine interest in the torture of monkeys and was not going to report it.
He went on to say that he watched around 70 videos involving the torture of monkeys but decided in October 2023 this was not for him and stopped.
Thomas Quirk, Senior Crown Prosecutor of Mersey-Cheshire Crown Prosecution Service, said: "The videos that Peter Stanley posted onto his page on the Facebook site are truly horrific.
"The torture imposed on these animals included sexual torture and it has been a distressing case for both the police and the prosecution team to deal with.
"Why anyone could possibly want to be involved in this sort of thing is impossible to understand. Peter Stanley was publishing videos of animals being brutally injured apparently for pleasure.
"His actions are against the law, and he is now facing the consequences. The Crown Prosecution Service would like to thank the witnesses in this case and Merseyside Police for their help in bringing this dreadful case to a successful conclusion.
"Behind each of these images there were defenceless animals being abused. Peter Stanley presumably thought he was going to get away with this. How wrong he was."
What an absolutely appalling offence, clearly perpetrated by a ghastly individual.
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