Man refused refund after finding mouse ‘twitching’ in Chinese takeaway

'That's a big mushroom isn't it?'

Sam Hayward, from Strood in Kent, had already begun eating his his mushroom noodle soup before he spotted something moving at the bottom.

The disgusted 39-year-old filmed the rodent and rang the local restaurant that he and his girlfriend had ordered from.

However the takeaway denied having provided the food and, having paid with cash, Mr Hayward and his partner were unable to prove their purchase as they had no receipt.

Mr Hayward said he initially thought the rodent was a large mushroom before noticing a 'tail'.

He explained: "My missus rang me up asking if I wanted anything to eat and I said I fancied a jacket potato. She said she wanted a Chinese, so she won that one.

"I started eating and got about three-quarters to halfway through it and then thought, 'That's a big mushroom, isn't it?'. It was twitching... I'm no animal expert, but it couldn't have been alive. The tail was the first thing I saw and it just freaked me out.

"I couldn’t believe it. It made me feel sick. I probably spent about 25 minutes in the toilet after trying to make myself sick. I just wanted to throw up straight away. I've got a pretty strong stomach, but this was another level.

"Just thinking about it makes me feel sick."

Mr Hayward then decided to take a video of the mouse twitching in his takeaway to prove to others what had happened.

He added: "I was still in shock. I don’t know why I filmed it but I did. The first thing I wanted to do was get mad at someone so I phoned the takeaway up and they said to prove it.

“Emily used cash only and we didn’t get a receipt, so we couldn’t."

Mr Hayward says the Chinese restaurant in Gillingham, where he had been a regular customer for nearly 20 years, have just denied that it was their food.

He said: "All I wanted was for them to apologise - it's just the principal. I didn't want them to say, 'Sam, you have free Chinese food for life'... I wouldn't have wanted it."

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