Zoologist Adam Britton pleads guilty to Supreme Court charges including bestiality

Warning: This story contains graphic details of animal cruelty and references to child abuse.

A prominent crocodile specialist from Darwin has pleaded guilty to dozens of charges of bestiality involving the torture, rape and killing of pet dogs.

Key points: Adam Britton was arrested in 2022 following a joint NT Police and Australian Federal Police investigation

He pleaded guilty to 60 charges in the Supreme Court

Supreme Court Chief Justice Michael Grant described the offending as 'grotesque cruelty'

A suppression order had hidden the identity of Adam Robert Corden Britton, a zoologist who has built an international reputation for his work on crocodiles over decades, since his arrest last year. However, that has now been lifted.

Britton is facing 60 charges relating to bestiality and possessing, accessing, and transmitting child abuse material.

A number of videos depicting animal cruelty were found during a joint NT Police and Australian Federal Police raid which resulted in his arrest on a rural Darwin property last year.

Police located 15 child abuse material files on his laptop.

After pleading guilty to all charges in the Supreme Court today, Chief Justice Michael Grant warned the gallery 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.

In a rare occurrence, the Chief Justice also excused the security officers and sheriffs from the courtroom while the facts were put on the record.

Crown prosecutor Marty Aust detailed numerous instances of torture and sexual exploitation of animals between November 2020 and April 2022.

The court heard Britton had a "sadistic sexual interest" in animals, and in particular dogs, dating back to at least 2014, and that his "deliberate and planned" conduct resulted in the intentional killing of at least 39 animals.

The ABC has chosen to limit the amount of detail describing Britton's crimes due to their graphic nature.

Mr Britton's case was heard in the Northern Territory Supreme Court in Darwin. ( ABC News: Che Chorley )

It was heard that Britton used marketplace website Gumtree to source new dogs, often building a rapport with the owners who were reluctantly giving their pets away due to travel or work commitments.

Mr Aust said a number of the dog owners had reached out to Britton for updates on their pets' transition.

"In such instances, the offender took photos of the dogs prior to torturing and killing them and would communicate false narratives to the dog owners and send pictures," he said.

Prosecutors told the court Britton owned a shipping container on his property equipped with filming equipment and used the space "to torture, sexually exploit and kill dogs".

Last year, police seized 44 items including computers, mobile telephones, cameras, external hard drives, tools, weapons, dog paraphernalia and sex toys.

Mr Aust told the court that Britton operated a Telegram account which was used for the sole purpose of engaging in conversations with "like-minded people", and that he used another account to upload and disseminate images and recordings of his crimes.

"Using these applications, the offender discussed his 'kill count' … and described the shipping container on his property as his 'torture room'," Mr Aust said.

Dozens of Britton's online messages to other users were aired to the court detailing the ways in which he carried out the offending and how he acquired dogs. In total, his account contained 114 chat threads.

In one message, Britton tells someone: "I had repressed it. In the last few years I let it out again, and now I can't stop. I don't want to."

Britton was remanded in custody and his case was adjourned for sentencing submissions in December, when it is expected his defence will make submissions.