Mad Matt, a second before he eats the rat. Image via Facebook
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A man has been sentenced to 100 hours of community service by a Brisbane Magistrate after filming himself biting the head off a live rat. Matthew Maloney, or “Mad Matt” as he’s known on social media, posted the video on his ” Mad Matts vids” Facebook page.
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It shows Maloney bursting into a room, grabbing the small white rat, biting its head off, swallowing it, and then washing it down with three shots of vodka. Maloney then gets punched in the face and has a chair broken over his head, before saying “beat that.”
For channeling his inner Ozzy Osbourne, Mad Matt faced a maximum penalty of three years’ jail, and a $220,000 [$168,000 USD] fine. The judge said he was unlikely to reoffend, labeling him “nothing but a silly idiot.” Maloney pled guilty to one count of animal cruelty and is banned from owning a pet for three years, on top of the community service order.
Outside court, Maloney said he was remorseful but told reporters, “I agree with the court’s decision… I just think, I don’t think it was that bad. There’s a lot of worse stuff you could have done,” he said, adding, “Buy rat poison, all that stuff, rat traps.”
Matt has left the rat decapitation as his profile pic.
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) formed part of the prosecution, saying that the rat suffered considerably. Maloney was quick to dismiss this statement outside court. “They said it was in twenty-nine seconds of pain. I don’t know how they could have proven that when they test on rats all the time,” he said.
While he won’t be making more videos, Maloney shared a post on his page following a backlash to the rat video. “This is for all the butt hurt people out there having a cry about what i did! I fed the body to my snake after the video and it wasn’t wasted (I like to share). So stop acting like a bunch of sissies and accept the food chain. Its (sic) mother nature and mans (sic) gotta eat!”
RSPCA prosecutor Georgia Sakrzewski told reporters outside court that the organization was happy with the outcome. “I think that he was wanting attention from social media, and I don’t think he gave much thought as to what he was actually doing in terms of the pain and suffering that he was causing to that animal,” she said.
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