Twisted Tail of a Bar Snack Too Far

An Australian pub has apologised over a game in which contestants were egged on to eat live mice to win a A$500 (£200) beach holiday.

Brisbane is no stranger to bizarre pub games, hosting the annual cockroach-racing world championships and numerous suburban cane toad races. But the competition in April at the city's Exchange Hotel went too far even for local stomachs.

The men were initially told to bite the tails off the mice while holding them in their mouths. When the compere upped the stakes by saying that the first to eat a mouse would win a holiday in the Gold Coast, one contestant chewed on his and spat it out. RSPCA chief inspector Byron Hall, who has been investigating the incident for a month, said that the charity would seek the strongest penalties against those who took part.

"To have been masticated while still alive is incredibly painful. Their skulls would have been crushed," said Mr Hall.

The men, in their 20s, could face fines of up to A$75,000 and two years in prison over the incident - part of a "Jackass Wednesday" promotion inspired by the MTV programme - although investigators have still not tracked down the winner. The pub apologised and promised that the incident would not happen again.