Teenager 'terrified' after finding dead bat in box of Rice Krispies

'The bat was definitely dead but it has put me off eating Kellogg’s ever again'

A common pipistrelle bat, similar to the creature Sehr Rafique found in her cereal (Mnolf/Wikipedia)

A teenager has spoken of her horror after she found a dead bat in her breakfast cereal.

Glaswegian Sehr Rafique, 17, said she "screamed the house down" when the dead animal, which had begun to decompose, fell out of her packet of Rice Krispies.

“I am scared of spiders as it is, so this terrified me,” she told the Daily Record. “I have never seen a bat up close, never mind one which I almost ate.”

“I screamed the house down when I saw the bat.

“Everyone came running down the stairs when they heard me scream. I have never seen anything like that before. The bat was definitely dead but it has put me off eating Kellogg’s ever again.”

Ms Rafique said the whole family have been put off their regular diet of breakfast cereal.

She added: “We have loads of boxes in the kitchen cupboard which now won’t ever get eaten.”

But after a complaint from the family, Kellogg’s have reportedly only sent vouchers for new cereal in compensation. The company also asked the cereal packet to be returned so it could try and identify how the bat came to be sealed inside.

A company spokesman told The Independent: "Kellogg’s adheres to very strict food safety rules that ensure our products are of the highest quality.

"We are taking this complaint seriously and have been in constant contact with Sehr’s father Mr Rafique."

But Ms Rafique was left disappointed with Kellogg’s customer service. She told the newspaper: “It’s a bit of an insult to be offered another box of cereal when the complaint is about a box of cereal.

“Bats can carry all sorts of diseases. It’s not the sort of thing you expect to find in food.”

Some bats in Europe carry the rabies virus European Bat Lyssavirus, but the disease has only ever been found on 10 bats in the UK, despite testing on over 12,500 of the creatures, according to the Bat Conservation Trust.