Producers of pornographic animal torture videos: Craig John Chapman, born 03/02/1975, of Cresswell Road, Hilderstone, Stone ST15 8RF, Theraza Smallwood, born 10/10/1980, of Parkhead Drive, Stoke-on-Trent ST3 6EW, Christine Louise Besford (now Christine Miller), born 02/05/1976, of Doulton Court, Stoke-on-Trent ST2 7QY and Sarah-Jayne Cook, born 1980, and from Stoke-on-Trent (now Sarah-Jayne Porter of Alvechurch, Birmingham).
In the only case of its kind to ever be prosecuted in the UK courts Craig Chapman, Christine Besford, Sarah-Jayne Cook and Theraza Smallwood all pleaded guilty to conspiracy to publish obscene material after making videos of small animals being tortured and killed for the sexual gratification of paying customers, which included London publican Brian Patrick McCann. More on him later.
The animals tortured to death by the gang over a period of around a year included mice, rats, guinea pigs and a kitten.
All four also admitted separate charges relating to the cruelty and torture of small animals.
Peter Cooper, prosecuting, told Stoke on Trent Crown Court how Chapman had told someone he met over the internet that he could supply videos depicting scenes of animal torture.
Describing the horrific scenes on the tape Mr Cooper said: “Throughout the film there are scenes of small animals being stamped on with high heeled shoes.
“There is another scene of an overtly sexual nature involving Chapman and a mouse taped to a wooden board.”
The footage also included a scene in which an eight-week-old kitten was glued to the floor and killed by a woman (identified as Christine Besford) with her stiletto heels.
An extract from the book Animal Spy: Animal Welfare Behind Enemy Lines by ex RSPCA undercover agent Terry Spamer, who investigated this case, expands on the horrific scenes shown on Chapman’s videos:
“The man behind the camera [Chapman] tells the girl [Besford] to stand on the kitten’s head. She did this, but not very well and her heel fell onto the kitten’s neck.
The kitten yelled in its incomparable distress……
the man behind the camera laughed”.
A former business associate of Chapman told us this (obviously treat as allegations for the time being):
Chapman had been going on a fetish chat room and putting it out there that he could make ‘custom made’ videos of animals being tortured to death and these bastards were e-mailing him with their fantasies and he along with the 3 other scumbags would get to work buying mice and guinea pigs from Pets at Home and other animals from a local yellow paper.
There was a scene in the seized video where Chapman lies on the floor naked with a plank of wood across him with a hole drilled in it for his privates to poke through, and a girl crushes a live mouse on it then smears its entrails on Chapman’s bits. Sick beyond belief.
They resin glued a 12 week old tabby kitten to a piece of wood and then tortured it to death. Chapman can be heard complaining on the tape “Oh no, there’s only 15 mins left on the tape, I was hoping to make a THIRTY MINUTE show of this…”It turned out that Chapman had been using his secretarial recruitment agency to see if any pretty applicants were particularly hard up for money and were potential “video stars” for his grotty enterprise.
We also received the following contribution from a Facebook user with a long-standing interest in the case:
Chapter Four [of Terry Spamer’s book] – simply titled “Look Away Now” is all about how Chapman was caught. What a harrowing read. Just reading the description of the first scene – where they’ve gaffer taped mice to the clutch of a car was enough to give me a mild panic attack.
Safe to say that by the time we get to the part where Chapman has RESIN GLUED the tabby kitten’s right hind leg to the piece of hardboard, I was in tears.
The terrified kitten has tried to escape clockwise, anti clockwise and almost a full circle in its desperate attempts to escape, breaking its own leg in the process.
Chapman tells the “star” (Besford) to stand on the kitten’s head. She does but her foot slips off and crushes its spine. At this point Chapman LAUGHS.
Even after the kitten is dead, Besford, at Chapman’s request, stabs her high heel at the kitten’s head until it rolls completely off.
The guinea pig is hung by picture cord, being lifted off the floor by Smallwood before Chapman tells her not to do it so hard or else she’d strangle it and the video would end too early, as they need to torture the poor creature for as long as possible for more money.
She stabs it through its ribcage with her high heels then after 15 mins of this, she breaks its spine by standing on it full weight as it tries to run away mortally wounded.
That’s the running theme here – Chapman giving the “stars” the instructions on how to hurt the animals in the worst ways possible to achieve the most pain for the longest time for more money.
He tells the “star” at the beginning not to brake as hard, as he wants the mouse to last longer.
For his “friend” to testify that he was only motivated by money back then in order to do this , then consider the fact that he LAUGHS at the kittens’ agony when it yells in pain.
That to me sounds like enjoyment.
What people are not realising is that there weren’t just three scenes on the tape, there was TWENTY. TWENTY scenes of terrified animals being slaughtered under Craig John Chapman’s instruction in order for him to make money.
He was selling clips for £200 a time so do the math.
Apparently demand for new tapes was so great that he couldn’t keep up .
Beyond sick.
Beyond depraved.
Chapman paid Besford, Cook and Smallwood between £100 and £700 each for taking part in the torture.
The defendants got the mice and guinea pigs from a pet store and the kitten had been bought from an advert in a local newspaper.
An RSPCA report, read out in court, said the animals all died from multiple internal injuries caused by the torture and they had all suffered immense cruelty before they died.
Sentencing: Chapman was jailed for two years for conspiracy to publish the video and four months for cruelty to animals. Besford, Cook and Smallwood were each jailed for four months. All four were banned from keeping animals for life.
The Customer: Brian McCann
In November 2002 father-of-four Brian Patrick McCann, born 24/03/1955, then the owner of Rosie McCann’s bar in York Road, Islington, London, was jailed for his role in producing the twisted videos.
In November 2002 McCann, who left the London pub trade to move to Ryde on the Isle of Wight with his partner pleaded guilty to conspiring to publish obscene material. He faced no animal cruelty charges.
A police search of McCann’s computer revealed 40 files of “squish” or “crush” movies in which small animals such as kittens, guinea pigs, mice and even fish and earthworms were squashed to death, usually by a woman in high heels and wearing a short skirt.
McCann commissioned the video after contacting Chapman via a website specialising in such films.
McCann ordered the video over the internet and asked specifically for footage of a kitten being killed to be included.
Judge Nicholas Medowar QC said McCann had directly contributed to the production of at least one of the films, ordering specific scenes to be inserted to satisfy his own desires.
He said McCann had offered “excuses more than explanations” and appeared to be in denial about the gravity of what he had done, and imposed a jail term to be effective immediately.
RSPCA inspector Mr Simon Osborne, who witnessed scenes from the movies, said they were the most sickening he had seen in his six years as an animal protection officer.
“What was very distressing for me was not only watching these animals being trodden on … but it was the sounds of the animals screaming in pain, in obvious terrible agony,” he said.
Mr Osborne said the society was disappointed a tougher sentence had not been imposed and that animal cruelty had been dropped from the charge list.
Sentencing: jailed for nine months.
2019 updates:
Craig John Chapman is managing director of transport company Dulogis Group Ltd (known as UK Sameday before its rebranding in late 2018 – we hear he might be putting that into reverse now).
An article published in a trade magazine and the local paper told how Chapman started the business in 2003 after he was released from jail “left an office job” and built it up from one man with a van to a nationwide company.
Chapman was named Entrepeneur of the Year at the Stoke Sentinel Business Awards in March 2019 – quite astonishing when a simple Google search lays bare the grim details of his murky past (the case made all of the main online news sites, is mentioned in a Wikipedia entry on crush fetishes and even featured in a Channel 5 documentary on extreme porn).
Chapman lives in a large house in Stone with his partner and their toddler son.
Theraza Smallwood, who is shown on the video torturing a guinea pig, has three older children, all with different surnames, and is currently dating someone around half her age. We contacted Smallwood who told us she hadn’t spoken with Chapman for 17 years (strange that since they are first cousins and she even worked for him a while last year).
She couldn’t or wouldn’t identify Chapman from the photo we sent her. She told us that her participation in animal snuff videos was “a very long time ago and I’d like to keep it in the past”.
Christine Louise Besford now goes by her married name Miller. She runs a barber’s in Endon Road, Stoke.
Sarah-Jayne Cook is recently married and she and her husband have a young son. She goes by her married name Porter and lives in Alvechurch in Bromsgrove, Birmingham.
I hear someone once said in Chapman’s defence – “he was just a kid when he did this, you should cut him some slack”
No he wasn’t. He was 27 years old, ran a secretarial recruitment agency and was already father to a daughter. To go to lengths he went to in order to hire women willing to appear in this horror, and the efforts made in mass producing
the tapes etc. takes a special sort of screwed up. The fact that Theraza Smallwood is his full cousin and he roped her in on this ‘operation’ speaks volumes to the integrity and sensibilities of that family.
She and Besford’s mitigating circumstances were apparantly that they had money troubles, but this is absolutely no excuse at all because no matter how much you are “on your arse” for money, any normal human being would run a mile or blow a whistle at the merest hint or suggestion of this sort of hellish endevour.
Cook on the other hand was Chapman’s secretary and I hear also his lover at the time. (Precisely the reason Chapman was breaking up in acrimony with his then girlfriend, which in turn led to the discovery of the tape which opened up this can of worms) She didn’t need the money, came from an affluent ,well to do family and apparantly came up with her own novel ideas on ways to torture and kill small animals. Lovely girl eh?
Bet her parents are so proud.
Brian McCann – a well respected and well established landlord of a popular and successful London pub – pays £1,500 so he can see a kitten being beheaded with high heeled shoes in order to masturbate .
The amazing thing here is it looks like his wife stood by him throughout it all.
Her husband fantasizes about animals being tortured to death so she stands by her man.
Unbelievable.
All the Persil in the world couldn’t remove these stains on humanity and one day , they’ll stand before the Lord and answer properly for what they did .
The prison sentences just weren’t long enough. But they never are , are they?
People have said Chapman has turned his life around with his business ventures of late. I say bullshit to that – he already had a successful business at the time of his arrest. He appeared in the videos himself and this is clearly “his thing” – a deep rooted sexual psychopathy – just like paedophilia – dosent just go away.
If he’s still not seeking out this material , producing it under more care not to be caught etc. , I’ll be very surprised indeed.
Absolute scum the lot of them .
Rot in hell
Well said !????????Mr Law .
This was quite simply the worst thing I’d ever heard of !
This gang of scumbags should be put down in a slow and painful way for the torture they inflicted on the innocent little animals they killed . They are the lowest of the low , I would like to pull the trigger and know they could never hurt another animal again . God help any kitten , puppy or small animal they ever get for their kids . They are disgusting monsters
They have seven children between the four of them . I’ve seen pictures of some of them with animals, albeit the pets of their relatives.
Check out the pic collage on this thread of Brian McCann – the scumbag who wanted to buy the seized tape – it shows him chilling on the settee with one of his pet cats.
The mind boggles
I know that this is not nice but I understand that the guy has moved on and is now a successful respectable businessman . I guess he dabbled in the grubbiest recesses of the porn industry tempted as a businessman by how much money there is to be made there. People will do anything for money and that is true about more than Craig Chapman, He paid a very heavy price as a very young man for that mistake. He was no dosser so doing time was no fun for the poor guy seeing his life slipping past sitting in prison with criminals. He wanted to be out there making money.
I think that it is time to give the guy a break as he has paid for his mistake.
Never heard of rehabilitation?
He is a sexual deviant every bit as bad as a paedophile and I doubt there’s a cure for his particular predilection. There’s every chance he still “dabbles” to satisfy his sick urges behind closed doors. The exposure we and Operation Frankish gave him ruined his business and his life and for that we have zero regrets.
That is a shame I think.
He was a young man who saw the porn venture as a business opportunity, a way to make money. He made mistakes like we all do.
It is a real testament to his business acumen that the guy has pulled himself up and has gotten that great business that gives employment to others.
He doesn’t look like a looser to me standing by his fleet of expensive trucks with the smile of a guy who has made it in life. I am inclined to think good on him for it.
I think what may harm business like his is all this covid rubbish. If the Government continue like this there will be no economy left.
He should maybe consider getting into selling second hand cars, that is a business venture that might succeed in the hard economic times the Government have created.
Why don’t you pick on the big meat producing companies campaign for nicer ways to slaughter animals. More CCTV in the slaughter houses and using nitrogen gas to kill.
Our business leaders have a tough enough time as it is and it is not just the entrepreneur i.e. like Craig Chapman who will suffer but all the people they employ.
That picture was taken before his company went down the pan. Have a look on Companies House. He has nothing. He lost his company, his reputation and even a business award foolishly given to him by the local paper. He had to hand it back in the end. Are we gloating? You bet we are.
Yes, we do all make mistakes, but for most of us those mistakes don’t include torturing animals. Also, you’re just calling it “porn”. I would not have a problem with him if he’d made porn in which nothing was being tortured like this, but that fact that he caused unspeakable harm and terror to innocent, defenceless animals is absolutely unforgivable. Frankly, he deserves to suffer in prison for the rest of his life for what he did
Aww bless, poor persecuted Saint Craig Chapman of Stoke, the man who can do no wrong. Tell ya what, hop on over to our private messages and we can go from there. If this is the hill you want to die on, so to speak. 👍
https://www.facebook.com/opfrankish
Well all I can reply is that Craig Chapman is an astute businessman who gave much needed employment to other people.
I guess a lot of people are jealous of him because he has what it takes to make money and be a success.
Everyone makes mistakes and anyway the guy is entitles to a private life.
Then hope on over to us and let’s talk. 👍
https://www.facebook.com/opfrankish
Listen up, Alan Sugar, you were made an offer. I’ll repeat the offer in case you missed it. Come talk to us. 👍https://www.facebook.com/opfrankish
Hi there
I don’t trust social media and don’t use it. I wouldn’t advise anyone to use social media.
I don’t know Craig Chapman by the way but I stumbled on the site and being the thoughtful being that I am I wanted to give my opinion.
I suppose that you are anti fox hunting too?
Are you a vegetarian? Me and my dog are shortly going out rabbit hunting are you against rabbit control too?
Update:
Well I got back from my rabbit hunt unfortunately without success. The grass is too long thanks to all the wet weather we’ve had so it conceals the rabbits.
The conditions are better suited to the dog sniffing them out but they usually manage to dodge the dog. Shame I wanted a nice rabbit, onion and sage pie to eat.
t smith, you are chapman. one day you and those bitches will get what you deserve
For you to put that comment after reading what those monsters did!, and how many animals were tortured and killed you want your head looking at. I also hope you’re never left alone around animals because I sense you’re either friends with this scum bag or are an evil sicko too!. Innocent lives were taken anyone involved should receive the same fate!.
and you need help if you consider torturing helpless animals to satisfy the sexual urges of freaks that should be used in medical experiments a “business opportunity”.
No please don’t get me wrong I just stated the fact that the porn production was a “business opportunity” i.e. a way of making money. The guy made money from it. It is not an endorsement of the practice just a statement of fact.
The guy should had changed his name probably to put all this behind him. That would have been a good idea it seems to me.
I am sorry that his trucking business didn’t work out if that is in fact the case because I believe that everyone deserves a second chance.
What about rehabilitation?
I wouldn’t mind betting that the guy’s trucks crushed quite a few hedgehogs flat on the road too in their time. They must have done. Should we ban trucking too because of that?
I think that you should concentrate on improving conditions in slaughter houses. Campaign for more CCTV and more rigorous policing of practices within the slaughter houses because there their is an immense potential for abuse. This guy is just a drop in the ocean compared to that .
Bottle merchant.
Mr. T. Smith, let me enlighten you on a few facts.
There was a scene on the seized tape where Mr. Chapman lay on the floor with a piece of wood over his naked body, with a hole strategically drilled big enough for his penis to poke through.
A series of mice were taped to said piece of wood Near his penis and his “co-star” would slowly crush these mice and then smear their bloody entrails on said penis .
Another scene featured an 8 week old kitten which had one of its hind legs glued to a piece of hardwood lying flat on a living room carpet and in its attempts to escape,had spun almost a full circle and had broke the glued leg in the process.
When his “star” tried to crush the poor animal’s skull (at Chapman’s request), her foot slipped into its neck and kitten yelled. At that point Chapman, the cameraman LAUGHED.
Another scene featured a guinea pig was taped to the floor and woman talked to it as if it were a person, telling the poor creature to “squirm for mistress”, “You’re scared little man aren’t you?” , “Youre going to die beneath my heels” etc etc.
Chapman had placed small expensive microphones around the guinea pig in order to amplify the sound of crunching bones and the animal’s squeals of pain.
Unanimously , it was the worst animal cruelty the RSPCA had ever seen in its history and Terry Spammer , the RSPCA special operations unit manager, who brought Chapman to justice, said hardened policemen at the station where the investigation was based, were so shocked and saddened by what they saw on the tape, some had actually shed a few years and if they’d had their way at the time, Chapman would have been taken out into the excersise yard and shot. Tears were rolling down the faces of the Stoke on Trent RSPCA inspector colleagues who were called in to view the tape when it was seized .
Chapman complained on the tape that he could only manage 15 minutes torturing the kitten but had planned to “make a 30 minute show” of it.
How any human being on god’s earth could hold a camera fixed on the sight of a kitten having a stilleto heel shoved in its eye or watching it finally be decapitated with that heel will forever be something I will NEVER understand.
In recent times it’s came to light from former romantic partners of Chapman that he is still obsessed with high heeled shoes.
He also is a crooked businessman , just look athe amount of dissolved companies he has on Companies House.
His current squeeze , Michaela James, is a convicted drug runner
Please don’t make Craig Chapman out to be some sort of rehabilitated financial genius.
He didn’t see a business opportunity in this sick endeavour, he was making videos for his own pleasure and that of fellow animal crush perverts.
Technically, he was making money from his hobby
He may have a head for business, but his penis is obviously for mice entrails
Mr T Smith
So you admire Craig Chapman for his astute business acumen ?
For example , buying a kitten from a yellow paper from people who thought it was going to a good home only to glue it to a piece of wood and film it’s death?
Top business skills in having mouse entrails smeared on his sad little penis?
Im glad there’s people like you willing to stand up for him because it makes me determined to torture Craig Chapman with this scandal til he’s in his grave.
Dosent matter what little business endeavour he starts, I’ll be there to remind his customers of his past.
And as for that scumbag Theraza Smallwood, it dosent matter what personality she projects onto the people of Stoke, I’ll be always waiting around the corner ready to pop up with nice little reminders of that slag’s past
👏