Mad Matt, a second before he eats the rat. Image via Facebook.
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.
It shows Matt 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. Matt then gets punched in the face and has a chair broken over his head, before saying “beat that.”
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For channelling his inner Ozzy Osbourne, Mad Matt faced a maximum penalty of three years’ jail, and a $220,000 [€151,000 EUR] fine. The judge said he was unlikely to reoffend, labelling 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 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 29 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 any more videos, Matt 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 organisation were 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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