#MostEvil | serial pet abuser Rio Daryle Hall, born 29/07/1987, formerly of Milford Haven, and more recently of Heywood Court, Tenby, Pembrokeshire SA70 8BP – tortured an eight-week-old kitten to death
Hall was banned from keeping animals for life after subjecting an eight-week-old kitten named Angel to a sadistic ordeal. He began by wetting her and placing her on a hot radiator, causing her skin to blister. He then kicked Angel so hard that she fractured her skull. Finally he mutilated the tiny kitten’s ears with scissors.
Hall’s partner and mother of his two children, Caroline Thies, took the stricken cat to the vet who discovered she had fractures to her skull and legs. Angel had to be euthanised to end her appalling suffering.
The vet said the only way the kitten could have received the injuries was by human action, either kicking, stomping or throwing her.
Hall had previously been banned from keeping dogs and cats in 2006, after kicking his dog Benji and breaking his back legs.
Thies, who as at 2018 is still with Hall, received a six-month conditional discharge and was banned from keeping cats or dogs for ten years after pleading guilty to failing to prevent unnecessary suffering to an animal.
As at September 2018 Hall is believed to be living in homeless accommodation in Pembroke. It seems his dopey wife has finally seen the light and chucked the evil get out.
Sentence: Jailed for six months. For his earlier attack on Benji, Hall had been given a 10-year ban on keeping animals. Following his conviction for cruelty towards Angel the ban was extended to life.
#MostEvil | Daniel Devlin, born 07/03/1966, of 33 Greenhead Road, Wishaw ML2 8DJ – stole ex-girlfriend’s dog, poured petrol over him and burned him alive
2018 photo of Daniel Devlin
Deciding he wanted rid of his girlfriend’s cross terrier dog Sam, Devlin stole him, drove to a deserted wood and tied him to a tree with a piece of rope. He then poured petrol over the dog and set him alight.
Sam was found the next day, barely alive and in agony, by a couple out walking
The tiny dog suffered 70% burns to his body and had to be put to sleep.
Evil dog killer Daniel Devlin pictured in December 2017
The court heard how Devlin had callously told a friend “I’ve tortured it, that’s it done”.
The presiding judge noted that Devlin showed no remorse for his actions. It came out later that he had also threatened a witness who was giving evidence at this trial.
Sentence: jailed for seven months. Banned from keeping animals for life.
#MostEvil | Shaun Andrew Furgusson, born 26/04/1981, as of December 2020 living in Spring Bank, Hull HU3 – stole a dog and tortured her over three days. Mongrel Chrissie died from her horrific injuries. Went on to steal another dog who was never found.
Shaun Furgusson and his victim, Chrissie, as found
Shaun Furgusson launched a motiveless attack on mongrel Chrissie, causing her to suffer brain damage, a punctured lung, five broken ribs and broken teeth. Part of her ear was cut off. Tragically she died shortly after being found by her owner.
During a horrific three-day ordeal Furgusson threw Chrissie at a television then kicked her, smashing five of her ribs. He went on to break one of her legs and bound it with wire. He then cut off one of her ears and attacked her with a hammer, smashing her teeth and shattering her skull.
Furgusson’s kitchen was said to resemble a slaughterhouse with blood everywhere.
2018 photo of Hull dog killer Shaun Furgusson
Furgusson denied having seen the dog when asked by her owner, but later called her to say he had found Chrissie in the garden of a derelict house nearby. Poignantly, the dog was still breathing when her devastated owner discovered her next to a blood-stained flag but it was too late to save her and Chrissie died in her arms.
During his trial Furgusson, who at this point had a prior conviction for robbery, absconded from court but was re-captured. An additional two months was added to his four-month jail sentence for the animal cruelty offence.
In November 2007 Furgusson, one of four brothers, started what was described as a “wild west brawl” at a family wedding to which he wasn’t invited. His mother, Teresa ‘Dolly’ Furgusson – an education worker with East Riding – thought her son should be forgiven for torturing a dog to death, but other family members didn’t see it quite the same way. The brawl resulted in Furgusson and his mother being arrested and the bridesmaid and bride’s brother ending up in hospital.
In June 2010 a family with young children pleaded with Furgusson when the 14-year-old dog they’d had as a puppy disappeared after he burgled their home. The dog, named Bruno, was never found.
For the burglary offence Furgusson was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment at Hull Crown Court.
2021 police mugshot of Furgusson.
In December 2011 sad case Furgusson attacked his ex-partner from whom he had a restraining order. He turned up at the woman’s address armed with a knife and meat cleaver. He held the meat cleaver to his neck and threatened to harm himself. Fortunately he was stopped from doing the world a favour. For this offence he received an 18-month community order.
As at 2017, father-of-one Furgusson was living at a bail hostel in Hull but later moved into a property in Hutt Street, Hull, where neighbours report seeing him in a constant state of drunkenness and singing to himself.
Sentence for killing Chrissie: just four months in prison.
Furgusson’s family home was in St John’s Grove, Hull HU9, and his parents, Steve and Teresa Furgusson, lived there until quite recently. They are now believed to be in Canister Close HU9 3BU.
Furgusson has three brothers – Steven, Stuart and Seb – and a sister named Natasha. He has a teenage daughter.
While believed estranged from his family for several years (although his mother has always reportedly stood by him) recent social media photographs indicate that Furgusson has been welcomed back into the family fold.
Updates
December 2021: the Hull Daily Mail reported that Furgusson (incorrectly referred to as ‘Fergusson’ in the article) was jailed for three-and-a-half years after allowing a Liverpool county lines drug-dealing gang to use his home as a base for supplying heroin and crack cocaine.
The court heard that Furgusson, who started injecting amphetamine at the age of just 14, was spending £100 a day on drugs.
Furgusson, now with 58 previous convictions to his name, admitted being concerned in supplying heroin and crack cocaine and permitting his premises to be used for supplying crack cocaine.
He said that a group of Liverpool men moved into his home and told him that they would “feed him” drugs. He did not gain anything financially.
#MostEvil | Bridget Louise Cole (aka Bridget Farley-Smith), born 17/11/1982, previously of Debden Green, Ely, Cambridgeshire but more recently (2019) of Whitemill Road, Chatteris PE16 6PG, and Peter John Grant, born 31/03/1986, of Station Road, Manea, March PE15 0HE – tortured a rabbit to death
Animal torturers Bridget Cole and Peter Grant
Charity worker Bridget Cole, who was also a cub scout leader, laughed as she dunked a rabbit named Lucky in a bucket of bleach and water and hit him repeatedly with a metal pole. The male lop was also burned with a cigarette lighter during a sick party.
Bridget Cole pictured in 2021
Accomplice Peter Grant, who was tried separately, finally ended the rabbit’s agony by bludgeoning him to death with a glass bottle.
Cole had denied the charge of cruelly ill-treating Lucky and claimed she had tried to save him from the actions of others, but this cut no ice with the court who also noticed her lack of remorse.
Grant in the meantime claimed he had nothing to do with putting the rabbit in bleach and said he had hit him with a bottle to “put him out of his misery”.
Sentencing: Cole – two-month suspended prison sentence; £1,500 costs. Banned from keeping any animal for 25 years (expires 2030).
Grant – 100 hours’ community service; £300 costs. Five-year ban (expired 2010).
CONVICTED (2005) | Karen Fox, born 31/05/1964, and as at November 2019 of 24 Haslam Grove, Shipley BD18 1PQ – tortured a six-week-old puppy before strangling him
Karen Fox has a history of sadistic animal abuse
Bradford magistrates heard Karen Fox had also committed “evil” and “sickening” acts of cruelty against other animals in the past. They told Fox it was their duty to jail her.
Fox had admitted strangling to death the six-week-old Jack Russell puppy the day after she had bought him as a birthday present for her young daughter.
She wept uncontrollably as she was imprisoned for 60 days and was led away in hysterics.
The court was told Fox, who pleaded guilty to a charge of animal cruelty, suffered from depression. Magistrates were urged by her solicitor not to jail her.
However, bench chairman Granville Dobson, passing sentence after reading a pre-sentence report, said: “You have harmed animals in the past in the most appalling fashion. The reports we have just read are beyond belief. The acts of evil described in them are sickening.
“This bench would not be filling its duty if it did not treat these offences extremely seriously.”
The court was told how Fox had killed the puppy the day after she had bought him for her daughter’s birthday. Nigel Monaghan, prosecuting on behalf of the RSPCA, said Fox had bought the dog for £150 but attacked him when she could not get to sleep because of his crying.
It was alleged that sadistic Fox tortured the puppy before finally killing him by strangulation.
The court heard how the puppy’s body was found wrapped in a blood-stained towel by a neighbour who tried to give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
The RSPCA was called and Mr Monaghan said that when questioned Fox fully admitted what she had done.
Fox, then of Sutton Avenue, Swain House, Bradford, told the RSPCA: “It was whining and yelping. I picked it up and strangled it. I stopped when it had gone limp.”
Arshad Mahmood, mitigating, had urged the magistrates to impose a community penalty.
He said Fox, who had no previous convictions, suffered from a mental health condition known as emotional unstable personality disorder which makes her feel down all the time.
He said she had suffered from the condition since she was 15 and had twice tried to take her own life when she was aged 17.
Mr Mahmood told the magistrates that Fox was devastated by her actions but had been feeling extremely unwell at the time of the offence in August 2004 and has since been receiving treatment at Lynfield Mount Hospital in Bradford.
The court heard that Fox had been receiving hate mail since the court case began and that her 12-year-old daughter had been bullied at school as a result of the incident.
An RSPCA spokesman said: “This sentence is a significant indication that the court took this offence extremely seriously.
“It was a tragic and horrible incident but also an act of cruelty. This is not acceptable and clearly the court took that view as well.
“This type of cruelty to animals is very rare.
“The majority of cases dealt with by the RSPCA are people who have failed to do something for their animal.
“Instances of actual physical attacks on animals are in a minority although they are on the increase which is a worrying concern.”
Sentencing: jailed for 60 days. Banned from having custody of any animal for the rest of her life.
