CONVICTED (2023) | repeat offender Richard Coyle, born 13 July 1996, originally from Blackwood, Caerphilly – caught torturing a hedgehog for a second time.
Persistent animal abuser Richard Coyle, of no fixed abode, was arrested at a house in the village of Crosskeys, Caerphilly, on September 29, 2022, where police officers found a mutilated female hedgehog who was still alive but covered in blood and a “white creamy substance”. The defendant was in bed, naked from the waist down and was wearing prosthetic breasts.
The court heard Coyle was lying in bed with various items including a cucumber, a vacuum pipe, a gas stove, women’s clothing, a shard of mirror, binoculars held together by tape, and two lit candles.
The hedgehog was found in a wooden box on the bedside table, and had a wound to her stomach through which her intestines were protruding. She was also found to have suffered a cut to the abdomen and three limbs.
The horrifically injured creature was taken to a vet and euthanised.
Coyle was arrested and interviewed but made no comment. He later pleaded guilty to causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal, cruelty to a wild mammal, and breaching a disqualification order.
In November 2020 Coyle was sentenced to 26 weeks’ imprisonment having tortured another hedgehog. His conviction came after police found a mutilated hedgehog covered in candle wax, with three limbs cut off and a visible broken bone.
The defendant was arrested and told police “It’s only a f* hedgehog, it has fleas” and claimed someone had thrown it into his tent in that condition. It was ascertained the person screaming “Help me” in a high pitched voice was Coyle, as he tortured the animal.
Coyle also has a conviction for manslaughter.
In mitigation, William Bebb said his client recognised the “severity” of the situation and acknowledge he would be receiving an immediate custodial sentence. He said the defendant served in the military and was previous Welsh champion boxer but he was diagnosed with PTSD due to his experiences of war and had fallen into drug and alcohol dependency.
Sentencing, Judge Rhys Rowlands said: “This was a deliberate and sadistic infliction of pain on a defenceless animal subjected to appalling cruelty at your hands…. This was just about a cruel a case as one could imagine and a mirror image of your previous offence.”
Sentencing | 18 months’ imprisonment. A 20-year ban on owning or keeping an animal.