A former Bradford councillor has been jailed for torturing and slaughtering his four kittens by swinging them round and smashing their heads against a wall.

Police and the RSPCA were met by an “appalling scene” after Robert Payne turned his home into a bloodbath by subjecting his pets to “unimaginable cruelty”.

He admitted losing his temper and using one as “a battering ram”.

Three kittens were found in his kitchen freezer and one was discovered decapitated on the landing after a neighbour heard a “loud-pitched scream” coming from his home in Ethel Street, Keighley, shortly after midnight on November 15.

The Court heard that the newly-slaughtered kitten’s head was never found Payne, who at the time of the offence was sitting as an Independent councillor in the Keighley West ward, admitted causing unnecessary suffering to four kittens and appeared at Bradford Crown Court in custody yesterday for sentence.

Bespectacled Payne, 36, in a red and white checked shirt and blue jeans, remained impassive in the dock as the gruesome details of the case were disclosed by prosecutor Stephen Wood.

He was imprisoned for five months for animal cruelty, plus an extra month for breaching a suspended jail sentence for fraud. Payne had quit the Conservative group when he was charged with fraud becoming an Independent until resigning earlier this month.

Judge Robert Bartfield branded him a coward and banned him for life from keeping any animal “domestic, farm or otherwise”.

Mr Wood said Payne’s neighbour, Belinda Stevens, called the police after hearing a scream “like a cat in pain”. She had been concerned for some time about his poor mental health.

Payne opened the door “in a state of intoxication” and the police were met by “an appalling scene.”

They called the RSPCA after finding dismembered bits of cat and substantial quantities of blood all about the house.

The bodies of a ginger and white and a black and white kitten were found frozen together in a black bin bag. One’s decapitated head was between the corpses. The other’s neck was broken. Another frozen body also had a broken neck.

The living room walls, curtains, windows and door were heavily blood-stained. Mr Wood said the marks suggested that a cat had been swung around the room when bleeding profusely.

An eye ball and part of a jaw, with the tongue still attached, were found on the floor.

On the upstairs landing was the decapitated body of a four-month-old tortoiseshell kitten. All its legs were broken and its head was still missing.

Mr Wood said there were bowls of cat food upstairs.

A vet found that all four kittens had suffered massive injury. Their limbs were shattered and their skulls crushed.

“Prior to their deaths, these kittens were subjected to unimaginable cruelty,” Mr Wood said.

Payne told the police he could not remember killing his cats.

“I woke up feeling something horrible had happened,” he said.

“I must have got angry about something, picked up one of the cats by its stomach and used it as a battering ram – smashed its head against the wall.”

Payne’s solicitor advocate, Ian Hudson, said: “He is under no illusions today that the sentence will be one of custody.”

He had never been in jail before and was given a hard time when inmates found out what he had done.

Judge Bartfield told Payne: “You decided to take your frustrations out on these innocent creatures who looked to you for their care.”

The kittens died “in the most unimaginable terror” when he swung them round to cause them maximum distress.

“The police and the RSPCA were greeted by the most horrific scene, with the living room spread about with the remains of these unfortunate creatures,” the judge said.

The judge said the maximum sentence was six months.

He could well understand that some people would feel such revulsion they would want Payne jailed for “years not months”.