Two friends filmed themselves laughing as they chased and beat a juvenile sheep to death before blowing it up with explosives.

Leighton Ashby, 22, and Oakley Hollands, 20, even kept a trophy of the killing placing its ear ring into a Monster can and hiding it in their college toilets.

The pair drove to a field near Ditchling Beacon in the South Downs in November 2023.

The former Plumpton College students invited two friends to join them to see a ‘dead badger’.

Ashby and Hollands proceeded to chase a young sheep, a ewe born that year, and caught it, before ‘violently assaulting’ it by punching and kicking it.

The attack, which lasted around 30 minutes, was filmed by Hollands, who can be heard laughing and telling Ashby to ‘kill it’.

The case has triggered ‘significant public backlash’, with 80 pages of correspondence being received by the Crown Prosecution Service.

Protesters lined the street in front of Hove Trial Centre ahead of the sentencing.

Members of the public have experienced ‘sleepless nights’ and ‘anxiety’ after learning of the incident in the press, according to a community impact statement read out in court.

‘The most overwhelming feeling was complete and utter shock and disgust,’ it added.

Judge Stephen Gold described the killing as ‘callous and sadistic’.
Prosecutor Jordan Franks said: ‘Mr Hollands and Mr Ashby ran ahead on seeing a sheep and began chasing it.

‘Mr Hollands shouted ‘get it, get it’ to Mr Ashby. It was chased for a while until they closed in on it.

‘Mr Ashby was sitting on it. Shortly after the mood seemed to change.

‘Mr Ashby put his arms round the torso of the sheep and swung it around, shouting ‘woo woo’.

‘Mr Ashby kicked the sheep five times to the body and head. He put his arms around the head of the ewe and started punching it in the head, getting harder and harder until it seemed concussed and could not stand up.

‘Mr Ashby dragged the sheep towards a wooden fence post where he smashed its head several times.

‘Mr Hollands can be heard shouting ‘go on kill it, kill it, kill it’ and he was laughing.’

The court heard fireworks were then inserted into the mouth, which was ‘obliterated’, and anus of the sheep and detonated, ‘mutilating’ the corpse.

During the attack, the two witnesses ‘kept their distance’ and headed back to the car.

The group then returned to Plumpton College

It was heard that Hollands told a female friend about the incident, who asked to be sent the footage.

This footage was then seen and reported to the college and, subsequently, the police.

The ear tag of the sheep was also kept by the pair and placed in an empty Monster can.

It was later found in a communal toilet at Plumpton College.

Mr Franks said two other videos were found on Hollands’ device, including a dead fox being cut in half and a badger being kicked.

He added this showed ‘a worrying pattern of interest in the mutilation of animals’.

It was heard both defendants come from an agricultural background and live on family farms with animals.

Mr Franks described the offence as ‘sadistic behaviour’, telling the court it appeared the defendants ‘took a great deal of pleasure in the suffering they caused to the animal’.

A community impact statement submitted by police summarised the concern felt by members of the public.

It said: ‘The defendants will transfer this behaviour into their relationships with humans.

‘Animals never have the opportunity to have a voice

‘This was a life that was taken.’

Both defendants are said to remain a ‘high risk to animals’.

Judge Gold said: ‘Quite what satisfaction you could derive 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 ordeal suffered by that defenceless animal is graphically portrayed on the video footage that you took during the attack.

‘It is clear to me that you, Ashby, carried out most (but not all) of the violence while you, Hollands, filmed it presumably so that you could both remind yourself of what you had done and show it to others who you thought might be interested or impressed.

‘As if what had already been done was not bad 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.’

Laurence Harris, defending Ashby, said a threatening letter was sent to his family in relation to the case and Ashby has ‘had to deal with active hostility’.

He added Ashby is ‘remorseful’ of his actions and cited his age, autism and ‘lack of maturity’ as mitigating factors.
‘This is entirely out of character,’ he said.

Defending Hollands, Caroline Baker said ‘what happened was extremely serious and ugly which is deserving of the condemnation it has received’, but that Hollands was aged only 18 at the time of the incident and ‘living with undiagnosed ADHD’.

She added he is of previously good character who has accepted responsibility by pleading guilty.

She said the ‘intense public backlash’ had been ‘hanging over him’, impacting him psychologically, adding he was ‘terrified’ about the outcome of the sentencing.

Ashby, of Beckett Road in Ashford, Kent, and Hollands, of Mussenden Lane in Horton Kirby, Kent, pleaded guilty to the offence in August last year.

Ashby was jailed for two years. Hollands was sentenced to 20 months in a young offenders’ institution.