Teenagers are filming attacks on badgers and hares to become wildlife crime ‘influencers’

We’ve become used to influencers using their online popularity to promote everything from fashion to holiday destinations.

Now there is evidence this 21st-century phenomenon has reached a much darker place – producing influencers in animal cruelty.

Once, those who participated in wildlife crimes like badger digging were content, and indeed careful, to confine knowledge of their illegal pursuits to close-knit groups of associates.

But social media has blown that caution apart and the RSPCA says it is turbo-charging a worrying new trend. Earlier this year teenagers Ryan Hancock, Marcus Leverett, and a third boy, who cannot be named because he was just 16 at the time, were convicted of multiple offences of animal cruelty – some of which they had edited to share with the world.

The trio used dogs to attack other animals including badgers, rabbits and cats near the estate where they lived, in Burnley, Lancashire. Police officers investigating examined mobile phones and found 182 videos of cruelty to animals, with some set to music and prepared for use on the social media site, TikTok.