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An Englishman has been sentenced to prison for coercing his girlfriend into having sex with their pet pug – and filming it over a three-year span.
Graham Marshall, 39, was sentenced on Monday, March 3, to five-and-a-half years in prison followed by four years of probation after pleading guilty to 12 crimes, including bestiality, the BBC reports.
Marshall, a resident of Sheffield, pleaded guilty in October 2024 to coercing Paige Reaney, 33, into performing a range of sexual acts with their dog, Charlie, to indulge his “perverted” fantasies, according to Sheffield Crown Court Judge Jeremy Richardson, according to the BBC.
Reaney was sentenced to nine months in prison, suspended for two years, after pleading guilty bestiality and animal cruelty.
Addressing the pair in court, Judge Richardson said, “The circumstances of this case are extremely disturbing,” the Manchester Evening News reports. “In a professional life in the law covering 45 years, I thought I had encountered most acts of depravity.
“This case is perhaps the worst example of a case of its kind that I have ever come across.”
Speaking to Marshall, the judge said, “You have wallowed in the swamp of sexual depravity repeatedly, and over a long period,” per the Manchester Evening News.
While the judge said there had been some “level of coercion” when Marshall got Reaney to have sex with their pug, he said she still shared responsibility for what they did to the “poor helpless creature,” the Manchester Evening News reports.
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A vet determined that Charlie was in pain when he was forced to engage in the acts by the couple, the judge pointed out, according to the paper.
“The dog has suffered due to the abuse of it by two human beings to a state of learned helplessness,” the judge said. “It has thus suffered unnecessarily. Pain was also inflicted on the dog deliberately during these bestial acts.”
The crimes came to authorities’ attention in 2021 when police seized devices from the couple’s home after receiving a tip about the possession of illegal images of children, the BBC reports.
Authorities allegedly found photos and videos of bestiality involving their dog on both of their devices over the course of three years, the BBC reports. Indecent images of children were also found on Marshall’s devices.
In October 2024, Marshall pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting, counseling or procuring intercourse with an animal; three counts of possession of an extreme pornographic image; and seven counts of making indecent photographs of children.
He also pleaded guilty to one count of taking an indecent photograph of a child and one count of voyeurism relating to a camera installed in a toilet.
Marshall’s attorneys told the court that he had been exposed to bestiality and was sexually and physically abused as a child. They further said he had been living in a tent in the woods after being ostracized by family and friends, the BBC reports.
Marshall has been put on the sexual offenders register for life; Reaney was put on it for 10 years. Both are prohibited from owning animals, according to the BBC.
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