Man sentenced after killing rats by pouring boiling water on them
A man has been given a 12-week suspended prison sentence for killing rats by pouring boiling water over them.
Gary Doidge of Simms Terrace, Gunnislake, was sentenced at Bodmin Magistrates’ Court on November 24 after pleading guilty to causing unnecessary suffering, following a prosecution by the RSPCA.
Doidge, aged 27, admitted pouring boiling water from a kettle onto living rats which had been captured and contained in a plastic bin at a recycling depot at the Hayedown Industiral estate in Tavistock on August 10.
The water from the kettle was then poured onto the rats, who could be heard squeaking, before a lid was placed over the top of the bin.
A vet, with more than 35 years experience in a general veterinary practice and expertise in research into rodents, reviewed the video footage.In a statement she said: "It is highly unlikely that they were dead at this stage, although they would have been suffering terribly.
"The likelihood is that they were alive and suffering, though not moving, though we cannot be sure how long their pain and suffering would have gone on for.
"Humans and rats have the same basic physiology and similar organs. Both have nervous systems that work in the same way, and both react similarly to infection and injury."
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Doidge pleaded guilty with burning two wild mammals - namely wild rats - with intent to inflict unnecessary suffering contrary to the Wild Mammals (Protection) Act of 1996.
As well as the prison sentence, which is suspended for 12 months, Doidge was also ordered to carry out 80 hours of unpaid work, and must pay £300 in costs and a £128 victim surcharge.
RSPCA Inspector Claire Ryder, who investigated for the charity, said: "The 2006 Animal Welfare Act applies to all vertebrates and puts a duty of care for the welfare of all animals under human control, even just for a temporary basis as was the case with these poor rats who had been captured and held in a bin, unable to escape."
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