Women jailed in UK for roles in global monkey torture ring

LONDON: Two British women, Adriana Orme and Holly LeGresley, have been sentenced in the UK for their involvement in an "abhorrent and sadistic" global monkey torture network sharing disturbing content about animal torture.

The two pleaded guilty to distributing obscene images and videos, which depicted monkey abuse filmed in Indonesia, reported PA Media/dpa news.

Worcester Crown Court in western England was told Orme and LeGresley both wrote online messages making light of, and approving of, the torture, which a judge described as "depraved, sickening and wicked."

Both women were arrested after a year-long investigation by the BBC and a police inquiry which was assisted by Action for Primates, a UK-based environmental conservation group.

Judge James Burbidge was told that the defendants were both members of a private chat group run by an administrator in the USA known as the "Torture King."

LeGresley admitted that she uploaded 22 images and 132 videos of monkeys being tortured to online chat groups between March 25 and May 8, 2022, and made a payment to a PayPal account to encourage cruelty on April 25 of the same year.

The 37-year-old, described as the "monkey haters" group's archivist, was jailed for two years.

Dutch-born Orme, 56, pleaded guilty in August to publishing an obscene article by uploading one image and 26 videos of monkey torture between April 14 and June 16, 2022, and to have encouraged or assisted the commission of unnecessary suffering by making a payment to a PayPal account on April 26 2022.

Mother-of-three Orme was jailed for 15 months.

When passing sentence on Wednesday, Judge Burbidge said he was left "almost in disbelief" at the evidence.

--BERNAMA-PA MEDIA/dpa

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