‘Sadistic’ convicted killer caught torturing hedgehog while wearing fake pair of women’s breasts is jailed for 18 months
- Richard Coyle, 56, was previously jailed for six months for a similar attack
A ‘sadistic’ convicted killer caught torturing a hedgehog while wearing a fake pair of women’s breasts has been jailed for 18 months.
Police forced their way into Richard Coyle’s barricaded bedroom in Caerphilly to find him torturing the hedgehog, whose stomach had been cut open while it was still alive, while almost naked.
Former soldier and boxer Coyle, 56, was wearing just a prosthetic bra to ‘simulate a woman’s breasts’, a court was told.
The female hedgehog was taken to a vet but was so badly mutilated it had to be put down.
A judge said it was an unimaginably cruel act against a defenceless wild animal – but the attack on the hedgehog was the second such incident in just two years.
Pictured: Richard Coyle, 56, who was jailed for 18 months after torturing a hedgehog for the second time in two years
Coyle is also a convicted killer – he admitted the manslaughter of a flatmate in South Wales, after killing them with a single punch, in 2006
Coyle was jailed for two years in 2006 after he admitted the manslaughter of a flatmate in South Wales, after killing them with a single punch.
He was jailed again in 2020 – this time for six months – for torturing a hedgehog while living rough in a tent. He was also banned from keeping an animal for 10 years.
On that occasion the court heard he mimicked the voice of a woman in distress and pleading for help as he cut off the defenceless animal’s legs and burned it.
Police rushed to the scene after hearing what appeared to be a woman screaming ‘Help me! Someone help me!’.
When arrested he told officers: ‘It’s only a f****** hedgehog – it’s got fleas.’
Coyle, a former Army boxing champ, was staying with friends in Cross Keys, Caerphilly, on September 29 last year when police burst into his locked bedroom.
Prosecutor Sara Pratt said: ‘They found Coyle naked from the waist down and wearing a prosthetic bra top to simulate a woman’s breasts.
‘He was keeping the hedgehog in a box next to his bed and had sliced open its stomach while still alive.
‘The hedgehog was suffering and death would have occurred over a prolonged period. It is clear that the injuries were intentional.
‘It is strikingly similar to his previous offence against a hedgehog.’
Coyle admitted causing unnecessary suffering to a protected species and breaching the ban on him keeping animals.
William Bebb, defending, said Coyle’s life was ‘a sad tale’ of someone who had shown much promise in his earlier life.
The barrister said: ‘He was a Welsh boxing champion and a military service boxing champion.
‘He became dependent on alcohol and drugs and it’s at the core of his downfall. He is ashamed of his position.’
Cardiff Crown Court heard Coyle suffers from PTSD after his Army service in Bosnia and Northern Ireland for the Royal Welsh Fusiliers.
Judge Rhys Rowlands told Coyle: ‘Your actions were sadistic. You seemed to be taking pleasure out of it,’ he said.
‘It wasn’t just cruel, it was the torturing of a defenceless animal. This was just about a cruel a case as can be imagined.’
Coyle, of Pontllanfraith, Gwent, was jailed for 18 months and banned from owning animals for 20 years.
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