Who is Adam Britton, “the monster of McMinns Lagoon”?

From the outside, Adam Britton appears to be a passionate – if quiet and nerdy – animal advocate.

Over the decades, the 53-year-old has built an impressive reputation as one of the world’s leading crocodile experts.

He has swum with predators in the wild, lent his pet crocodile Smaug to countless films and documentaries, and even hosted Sir David Attenborough at his home in Darwin, Australia; all the while preaching the need for greater respect for these creatures.

Warning: This story contains details of abuse that readers may find distressing.

Britton is now considered one of the world’s worst animal abusers. He was sentenced this week to more than a decade in prison for filming himself sexually abusing and torturing dozens of dogs. In addition to 56 counts of animal cruelty and bestiality, he also admitted four counts of accessing child abuse images.

The news caused a wave of shock and disgust around the world, leaving some who knew Britton wondering how he became known as the “Monster of McMinns Lagoon” – a reference to the vast estate where he committed his crimes.

Several described to the BBC a shy but friendly man, others an arrogant attention-seeker who took credit for work that was not his. But there was one thing they all agreed on: when they searched through their memories for clues to Britton’s depravity, they found nothing.

“It really does seem like a Ted Bundy-type situation where you would never have imagined something like this would be possible,” says his former colleague Brandon Sideleau.

Born in West Yorkshire in 1971, court documents say Britton had concealed a “sadistic sexual interest” in animals since childhood and began molesting horses at the age of 13.

But beyond that, little is known about his early life in the UK.

On his blog, Britton said he was inspired to become a zoologist by three people: his mother, who was a “passionate naturalist”, his biology teacher Val Richards and Sir David, his role model.

He studied a BSc at the University of Leeds, graduating in 1992, and then completed a PhD in zoology – on bat hunting methods – at the University of Bristol in 1996.

But his dream had always been to escape the UK and research crocodiles, he said in a 2008 interview. He had been fascinated by them since childhood and wanted to help redefine the increasingly strained relationship between humans and reptiles.

“If people don’t understand them, you don’t really have any hope of convincing people that they’re worth keeping,” he told entertainment news site Den of Geek.

So in the mid-1990s, Britton found himself in the dusty plains of the Northern Territory (NT), home to the largest population of saltwater crocodiles on the planet.

There, Grahame Webb, a pioneer in the field, took the “very, very enthusiastic” young man under his wing at Crocodylus Park, a small zoo and research centre.

Britton has turned to film projects, but has also participated in research, including a 2005 study of The powerful antibiotic powers of crocodile blood that made headlines around the world.

In 2006 he left the company to set up a competing crocodile consultancy business with his wife, and later also took on a role as an adjunct research fellow at Charles Darwin University.

During Britton’s decades in Darwin’s crocodile research fraternity, many peers who initially thought him shy but “nice enough” came to view him as an “odd man” and antisocial.

“He was quite arrogant… so he wasn’t particularly popular, but he was quite good at his job,” says John Pomeroy, who organised the field research for Crocodylus Park.

Professor Webb saw himself as something of a mentor, someone who helped Britton get started in the industry and develop expertise in filmmaking, but Britton burned all his bridges when he resigned.

He was an egoist who passed off much of the Crocodylus Park team’s work as his own, Professor Webb claims, and then poached their clients.

“There are scientists and there are scientists,” Professor Webb tells the BBC.

“He knew everyone and he had a lot of knowledge, but it’s different. Librarians have a lot of knowledge too.

“Guys like Adam are just trying to get on the news.”

Mr. Sideleau, who co-founded an attack database called CrocBITE with Britton in 2013, tells the BBC a similar story. Britton “liked to take credit” for the archive, but had “never contributed to a single incident,” Mr. Sideleau says. He simply paid for the website’s domain.

But in the wider community, Britton and his pet crocodile have become stars.

After leaving Crocodylus Park, he established himself as a leading expert on crocodile behaviour and turned his verdant McMinns Lagoon estate – once home to eight crocodiles – into a global filming destination.

“He had an international reputation like no one else,” a former friend and wildlife researcher – who asked not to be named – told the BBC.

When Sir David’s documentary series Life in Cold Blood arrived in 2006, Britton built a specialist enclosure for Smaug that allowed the programme to capture groundbreaking footage of crocodiles mating.

It was a “dream come true” to work with his idol, Britton told The Daily Telegraph years later.

Given the difficulty of filming many crocodile behaviors in the wild, a circus of television crews cycled through McMinns Lagoon.

“If you’ve ever seen an underwater photo of a saltwater crocodile, chances are it’s Smaug,” Britton told the NT News in 2018.

Steve Backshall filmed scenes for his documentary Deadly 60, Man vs Wild’s Bear Grylls visited him, and even the movie producers had Britton’s number.

His expertise was also sought abroad. He helped measure the world’s longest crocodile, captured in the Philippines in 2011, and in 2016 he accompanied TV host Anderson Cooper on a dive with wild crocodiles in Botswana for an episode of CBS’s 60 Minutes.

“He was a leader in his field… a nice guy,” Australian director and screenwriter Andrew Traucki told the BBC.

Mr. Traucki worked with Britton on the 2008 crocodile horror film Black Water and its 2019 sequel. He described spending many happy hours on Britton’s property with his “awesome” Swiss shepherds.

At the time, the zoologist was exploiting his own pets and manipulating other dog owners into giving him theirs, the court heard.

Using the online marketplace Gumtree Australia, he found people who often reluctantly gave up their pets and promised to give them a “good home”.

If anyone asked him for news, he would tell them “false stories” and send them old photos.

Most of the time, the dogs were already dead, having endured indescribable suffering inside a container equipped with recording equipment that Britton called his “torture chamber.”

In the 18 months before his arrest, he tortured at least 42 dogs, killing 39 of them.

“That’s what’s been haunting me ever since I heard… you would never have chosen him for that,” Mr. Traucki said.

The news also shook the international community. Hundreds of people around the world joined social media groups dedicated to following his case, and some turned out to his court hearings to plead for his death sentence – even though the punishment has been banned in Australia since 1985.

A small crowd even turned out in Darwin to witness Britton’s sentencing, weeping in the courtroom as details of his crimes – too graphic to be published – were read out.

They wanted to be a voice for the pet owners defrauded by Britton, most of whom are still too traumatized and guilt-ridden to speak out, as well as a visible symbol of the community’s horror.

“I looked at this man and thought, ‘What a smart, kind man,’ and then when I found out what he had done… I didn’t sleep for three weeks,” said Natalie Carey, one of the participants.

Looking back, several people who knew Britton say there were fleeting moments when he seemed to lack empathy.

But all say there was no indication he was violent or cruel.

“It’s not like we saw him pulling the wings off grasshoppers just to watch them suffer. He wasn’t one of those people,” Professor Webb said.

“It’s just sad to realize that someone you know was in such a mental state and you weren’t lucid enough to see it and do something about it.”

“We feel a certain sense of responsibility.”

Mr Britton’s lawyer argued that he had suffered from a rare condition that caused intense and atypical sexual interests since childhood.

But in his apology letter, Britton accepted “full responsibility” for the “pain and trauma” he had caused and promised to seek treatment.

“I will find a path to redemption,” he wrote.