A ‘gentle giant’ who secretly shared ‘extremely perverse’ videos of baby monkeys being tortured on Facebook has been jailed for 20 months.
Peter Stanley, 42, was part of a private Facebook group called ‘Monkey Sauce’ where members were encouraged to view and post their own videos of monkey torture.
Stanley, who previously worked for a solicitors’ firm, shared three of his own videos in the group, and left comments such as ‘A fave of mine this one’ on other sickening posts.
But unbeknownst to Stanley, the group had been infiltrated by animal welfare activists, who passed his Facebook ID over to the police.
During a raid of his home, detectives seized a mobile phone containing 75 videos of monkeys in distress.
Stanley was also found to have been searching terms on the internet such as: ‘Horse Porn’ and ‘How to tell if a baby monkey is distressed’.
Following his arrest, on March 26, Stanley told police he joined the group out of curiosity, and that the rules required each member to post three videos to ‘prove’ they would not report the group to authorities.
The videos, which varied between seven and 15 minutes in length, showed baby monkeys being horrifically tortured by people believed to be in either Thailand or Indonesia.
Among the extreme violence inflicted on the monkeys included mutilation and torture with instruments including pliers, a hatchet and a machete.
Stanley did not make the videos himself or harm animals directly, but told the moderators of the group he wanted to join because he ‘hated monkeys’.
During a hearing at Liverpool Crown Court, Stanley admitted three counts of publishing obscene material before he was jailed this morning.
His arrest came after the broadcast of a BBC TV documentary, The Monkey Haters, which uncovered the existence of streaming videos containing the torture of baby monkeys.
Thomas Quirk, senior crown prosecutor of Mersey-Cheshire Crown Prosecution Service, said: ‘The videos that Peter Stanley posted on his page on the Facebook site are truly horrific.
‘The torture imposed on these animals included sexual torture and it has been a distressing case for both the police and the prosecution team to deal with.
‘Why anyone could possibly want to be involved in this sort of thing is impossible to understand. Peter Stanley was publishing videos of animals being brutally injured apparently for pleasure.’
Charles Lander, defending, told the court today that two references had described the defendant as ‘caring and friendly’, who was ‘full of integrity’ but now also full of remorse and regret.
Upon disclosing his arrest, his employment was terminated and his partner of eight years ended their relationship. He has since been living with his parents who described their son as a ‘gentle giant’ and ‘couldn’t believe they are sitting in crown court.’
Sentencing, Judge Ian Harris told the defendant: ‘These offences are utterly repellent and have no place in a civilised society. You were a volunteer, not a conscript.’ The judge told the defendant that an immediate custodial sentence was ‘unavoidable’ and sentenced him to 20 months’ imprisonment.
Sapeaking after the hearing, Sarah Kite, co-founder of Action for Primates, said: ‘We are very grateful to Merseyside Police for taking this action against the posting of monkey torture videos on Facebook.
‘Those individuals involved in distributing graphic and obscene content depicting the violent and sadistic torture and killing of baby monkeys need to know that their behaviour is not only vile, but is also a crime.
‘We also hope that this prosecution will be a wake-up call to Meta and other social media companies that continue to allow this highly disturbing and graphic content to be posted on their platforms.’
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