Survival celebrity chefs roasted after serving rat risotto

The snakes and crocodiles that are supposed to infest the Australian set of a British "survival" show might not have bitten its celebrities, but reality has.

Italian-born television chef Gino D'Acampo and UK soap star Stuart Manning have been arrested and charged with animal cruelty after killing a rat and serving it with risotto to fellow members of the cast of I'm a celebrity ... get me out of here.

The show is set around a forested camp at Dungay, inland from Coolangatta.

It is portrayed in the series as a remote and dangerous jungle, inhabited by venomous and deadly spiders, snakes and reptiles.

Many do thrive there, but the show went too far when it claimed crocodiles infested rivers well south of their actual range.

And Dungay is within an easy drive of Byron Bay and the Gold Coast, and just 8km north of Murwillumbah, noted for its affluence, art deco buildings and its rating in one survey as one of the 10 most desirable places to live in Australia.

D'Acampo, 34, and Manning, 30 - formerly a star of the long-running college TV soap Hollyoaks - were nabbed after adding their own touch to the show's colour.

They had been filmed displaying the dead rat to fellow celebrities who had until then been living mainly on rice and beans, and describing how they had caught, killed and skinned the rodent with a kitchen knife.

D'Acampo, who besides appearing regularly on BBC's Ready Steady Cook show runs his own ingredients' supply company and develops ready-cooked meals for the Tesco chain, served it up with his own recipe.

"It was the best recipe I ever did," he was reported as saying. "It was beautiful."

D'Acampo won this year's series, decided by the votes of the show's audience of millions.

The RSPCA, which monitors the treatment of animals on the show, was not impressed. The animal welfare watchdog's New South Wales chief inspector, David O'Shannessy, told BBC radio that the rat's fate was outside the code of practice governing the use of animals in theatrical productions and films.

"The killing of a rat for a performance is not acceptable," he said.

"The concern is this was done purely for the cameras."

Unconfirmed reports said the rat, supposedly caught in the bush, was, in fact, tame.

O'Shannessy said production staff were required to formally notify the RSPCA or the Animal Welfare League of the intention to use animals in a scene.

But he said no notice had been given and as a result no RSPCA officer had been present when the segment was filmed.

Murwillumbah police issued a statement confirming that D'Acampo and Manning had been charged with the offence of animal cruelty and would appear in court on February 2.

The offence carries a maximum penalty of three years' jail.

The show's producers have been ordered to surrender film showing the death of the rat and its British distributor, ITV, may also be charged.