In a statement in open court [pdf] read before Mr Justice Nicklin on 7 March 2018 a  customer who made social media posts claiming that a nutrition product contained a dead mouse has apologised to the manufacturer and supplier and has agreed to pay costs and damages.

The Hut.com Limited and Cend Limited, are the seller and manufacturer of Myprotein nutrition products.

On 10 April 2017 a customer, Mr Adam Brenton, falsely claimed that a dead mouse was contained inside a packet of Myprotein product which he bought from The Hut.com Limited and severely criticised their customer service.  He posted three tweets, a Facebook post and an Instagram post about the product.  These were accompanied by photographs of a mouse carcass inside the Myprotein packet.

Mr Brenton subsequently got in touch with the Manchester Evening News which posted a story about the alleged finding of the dead mouse.  This story was widely republished in the national press.

However, testing of the mouse carcass established that it had been dead for 7 to 14 days – significantly post dated the packaging and delivery of the item to Mr Brenton

Mr Brenton has now acknowledged that his allegations were unfounded and untrue, that his packet of Myprotein did not contain a mouse when sold to him and that the customer. service provided by The Hut.com Limited in response to his complaint was beyond criticism.

Carter Ruck represented the Claimants and there is an item about the case on their website as well as news stories on the BBC website and in the Sun.  The Manchester Evening News had apologised for its story in May 2017.