On February 23, two students who were detained for violent animal cruelty in the UK were handed the consequences of their actions.
The British individuals, residing in Kent, recorded themselves blowing up a sheep with fireworks after chasing it and beating it down. The video triggered mass outrage and led to their arrests by Sussex Police within days of the incident.
Highlights
- Two UK students, Leighton Ashby and Oakley Hollands, received jail time for fatally mutilating a sheep.
- Many thought their sentences were too light, given the brutal nature of their crime.
- The Judge who passed the sentence qualified the act as “sadistic.”
Leighton Ashby, 22, and Oakley Hollands, 20, were detained on November 8, 2023, on charges of causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal.
“I would also be investigating their parents,” one user said about the pair’s crime.
Two British students received prison sentences for multiple acts of animal cruelty
Image credits: Sussex Police
The two students admitted to slaughtering a sheep on the South Downs, East Sussex.
Ashby, of Beckett Road in Ashford, and Hollands, of Mussenden Lane in Horton Kirby, drove up to a field near Ditchling Beacon on the evening of November 2, 2023, according to a report by Sussex Police.
Moreover, the authorities found that Ashby and Hollands were studying agriculture at Plumpton College when the incident took place and they live on family-owned farms with animals.
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The pair started chasing multiple sheep that were in the field and caught one. They beat and kicked it, and then inserted and set off bird scarer firecrackers into its body through the animal’s mouth and rear side. The detonation “obliterated” and “mutilated” the sheep’s body, according to court hearings.
Almost two years after their arrest, both men pleaded guilty on August 7, 2025, at Brighton Magistrates’ Court. On Monday, they were handed prison sentences for their offenses.
Ashby was sentenced to two years in jail. Hollands, on the other hand, will be serving 20 months in a young offenders’ institute. Both were disqualified from owning animals for 10 years.
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Some netizens thought that the punishment was too light for the crime.
“They should have got at least ten years,” one said. “What an intimidating sentence. Next time, bring them lunch on the court,” another added, sarcastically.
A third wrote: “This is beyond repulsive. What depravity sits in their evil brains.”
The judge called the crime "sadistic" and called the student's background into question
Image credits: Sussex Police
While passing the sentence, Judge Jeremy Gold labeled the attack on the sheep as Ashby and Hollands’ “own perverse satisfaction.”
“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 added.
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The probation service was instructed by Judge Gold to consider them a “high risk to animals” in the future.
“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,” Prosecutor Jordan Franks said in his statement.
Image credits: Sussex Police
“Mr. Hollands can be heard shouting, 'go on k*ll it, k*ll it, k*ll it’ and he was laughing,” he added, describing the video.
It was revealed in the hearing that the two kept the sheep’s ear tag inside an empty energy drink can, which was retrieved from a communal toilet at Plumpton College.
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Franks described the crime as “sadistic behaviour,” and stated the pair “took a great deal of pleasure in the suffering they caused to the animal.”
The defense argued that Hollands has been diagnosed with ADHD and Ashby with autism and learning difficulties, and they were both of previous good character.
Violating the UK’s Animal Welfare Act can result in up to 5 years in prison
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The United Kingdom’s animal cruelty laws, under the Animal Welfare Act 2006, make causing harm to animals, especially protected and domesticated ones, a serious offense.
Penalties for violating the Act can include a lifetime ban on owning animals, unlimited fines, and up to five years in prison. However, young people aged 15 to 21 are rehabilitated at the Young Offender Institution (YOI), a specialized, secure detention facility with educational and vocational training facilities.
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Hollands’ lighter sentence could be attributed to his age (20), along with the fact that he was the one filming the incident while Ashby was actively committing the violence.
Despite the 2006 Act introducing stricter consequences for animal ab*se, instances of it reportedly rose by a third across England and Wales in 2024, according to the BBC.
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The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) received 34,401 cruelty reports between June and August 2024, up from 25,887 in the same period the year before.
In 2025, the RSPCA reported that 42% of adults witnessed acts of animal cruelty, 30% of which were online.
"Psychopaths need to be identified earlier." Social media exploded over the prison sentences Ashby and Hollands received
