#MostEvil | former Keighley Bradford councillor Robert John Payne, born 14 February 1975, most recently (2022) of 21 Bethel Avenue, Bispham, Blackpool FY2 9SA – killed four kittens by swinging them and smashing them into walls
Robert Payne swung the four-month-old cats round his house in Keighley, West Yorkshire, broke their skulls and most of their limbs, and decapitated two of them.
The cowardly former councillor for the Keighley West Ward of Bradford Council then kept three of the poor creatures in his freezer while their blood was spread round his house and their remains strewn across his living room.
Payne flew into a drunken rage and attacked the four kittens he had bought off the internet. He then ‘picked up one of the cats by its stomach and used it as a battering ram’ and ‘smashed its head against something’.
Police were eventually called to his house after a neighbour reported hearing banging and the sound of a cat screaming.
Officers were confronted by the horrific scene of dismembered animal parts scattered over the house, along with blood on the walls at shoulder height from where he had swung the injured kittens around the room.
Stephen Wood, prosecuting, told the court: ‘The police went inside and they were met with what the prosecution submit was an appalling scene, with fragments of dismembered parts of animals over the house, together with a substantial quantity of blood.’
The barrister said the pattern of blood on the walls suggested a ‘profusely’ bleeding cat had been swung around the room.
He said officers also found fragments of bone, an eyeball and part of a jaw with the tongue still attached on the living room floor.
Three of the kittens were found in a freezer and the fourth was found decapitated upstairs. Its head was never found.
The skulls of the other cats had all been crushed and nearly every limb had been fractured.
Mr Wood said: ‘Prior to their deaths, these kittens had been subjected to unimaginable cruelty.
‘The blood was contorted around the entirety of the room in a circular fashion, at shoulder height.’
Payne told police he was not ‘100%’ sure what had happened but said it was ‘more than likely’ he had killed them.
Judge Robert Bartfield rejected Payne’s claim that he couldn’t remember the attack taking place and labelled him a ‘coward’.
Sentencing Payne, Judge Bartfield said: ‘For some reason, you decided to take your frustrations out on these innocent creatures who looked to you for their care.
‘You had killed three of them in circumstances which for them can only have been in the most unimaginable terror.
‘Each of them was swung round the room deliberately, no doubt as to cause the maximum distress, and all of them had their skulls broken.’
Judge Bartfield continued: ‘The police and RSPCA were greeted by the most horrific scene, with the living room spread about with the remains of these unfortunate creatures.’
The judge said people feeling ‘revulsion’ at the case would wonder why Payne was not being sent to prison for years.
But he said he was bound by sentencing guidelines, which state a maximum prison term of six months for such an offence.
Bespectacled Payne stood in the dock with his hands clasped in front of him and showed no expression as he was jailed.
Sentence: jailed for five months and banned from keeping animals for life.