Revealed: Attempted murder past of horse sex man

A newspaper report of the case from March 1991 states Ridgeway was taken from the dock at Leeds Crown Court protesting: “I have never had sex with a horse.”

That jury took less than half an hour to reach their verdict finding Ridgeway, then 28, guilty of attempted murder on July 3, 1990.

‘Dangerous sexual deviant’ found guilty of having sex with horse at West Yorkshire farm: Click here for more

The prosecution claimed he had twice chocked her unconscious to silence her after she had found him in a “compromising situation” with her mare Ripple.

Sentencing Ridgeway, Mr Justice Jowett said: “You were about to behave in a disgusting manner with her pony and when she surprised you, you quite plainly decided she should not live to tell the tale.”

The judge said that a serious aspect of the case was that Ridgeway had twice choked the girl unconscious.

He had probably thought he had killed her the first time.

“You dragged and lifted her body to a place where you hoped to conceal it.

“When you saw her begin to revive, that should have brought you to your senses; it did not.

“You then tried a second time to kill her.

“It is quite clear to me, but for the fortunate appearance of her mother on the scene, you would have kept the pressure on her throat and made no mistake about it the second time, and she would have died.”

The victim had described to the jury how she had gone to a field off Denby Dale Road, Wakefield, to look for her pony and found Ridgeway half naked.

He had no trousers or underpants on and appeared to be washing the backside of her pony from a bucket

Ridgeway denied that he had been interfering with her horse that day and said he was not responsible for attacking the teenager.