A GANG who laughed and celebrated as they posed for photos in the style of Victorian trophy hunters after killing four badgers have been jailed.

After using a pack of dogs to flush the animals out from their sett, Tristan Asbury, 18, and Luke Lowther, 26, Kaider Tariq, 22 and Nathan Niland, 26, kicked the protected creatures “like footballs”, struck them with spades, stamped on them and held them down while they were being mauled at a woodland in North Yorkshire.

Graphic films of the two badger-baiting trips was played to Bradford and Keighley Magistrates’ Court, with the footage showing the group pulling the animals out of their setts and throwing them to waiting dogs.

RSPCA inspector Danielle Grimshaw said the footage showed the men encouraging the dogs to catch a badger that was running for its life. She said: “All the time you can hear the badgers screaming. You can hear them saying things like “Look at that, still putting up a fight”, “Stand on its neck,”, and “Good ten minutes and it’s still alive.”

The location of the badger-baiting has not been released due to concerns for the animals.

An RSPCA investigation was launched after a member of the public saw online pictures of Tariq holding a dead badger, which had been posted on his Instagram account.

Prosecutor Andrew Davison told the court all four men, of West Yorkshire, who all pleaded guilty to offences under the Protection of Badgers Act, had been involved in digging out badger setts on January 18 last year.

He said Lowther was absent on a second trip on January 25 when the others were stopped by police as they drove on the A1237 north of York, adding the men could be seen “holding up badgers as trophies”.

Mr Davison said: “This case is about people who go to considerable lengths to seek out animals who are completely overwhelmed by them as more powerful adversaries. This is as serious a case of animal cruelty as I have seen.”

After the RSPCA were alerted to the images on Tariq’s social media, officers teamed up with police to execute a warrant on his home in Bradford Moor, in July last year.

They found two dogs being kept in a back yard filled with “faeces, urine, and rubbish”, and three cockerels suffering from a serious foot infection. Analysis of Tariq’s phone led to the arrests of Niland, of Idle, and Asbury and Lowther, both of Holme Wood.

Asbury was jailed for 18 weeks, Niland and Tariq for 24 weeks and Lowther for 12 weeks. They were all disqualified from keeping dogs for life.