Pinch pair pay up after penguin prank

by: Jeremy Pierce
From: The Courier-Mail
May 02, 2012

FLAP: Lawyer Bill Potts (from left) leaves Southport Court on Wednesday with Keri Mules and Rhys Owen Jones. Picture: Kit De Guymer Source: Gold Coast Bulletin

TWO bird-brained pranksters who stole a penguin from Sea World, on the Gold Coast, have each been fined $1000.

The men, from Wales, stole the penguin, named Dirk, from the Fairy penguin exhibit during a drunken night of mayhem at the popular marine park on April 14.

Rhys Owen Jones, 21, and Keri Mules, 20, faced Southport Magistrates Court on Wednesday morning and each pleaded guilty to counts of trespass, stealing and unlawfully keeping a protected animal.
The duo, in Australia on a working visa, were part of a group that entered Sea World late at night through an unlocked gate, setting off a fire extinguisher in the shark tank and swimming with the dolphins before grabbing Dirk on the way out.

Back at their Southport apartment they posed for photos with the animal before passing out drunk.
In a scene out of the Hollywood smash The Hangover, they woke the next day with sore heads and no idea why they were sharing their digs with a penguin.

After a feeble attempt to feed and shower the bird, the men panicked and released him in to the shark-infested waters of the Gold Coast Broadwater.

The men were arrested after a mutual friend spotted the pictures on Facebook and called the police.
After an extensive search, Dirk was found later that night shivering under a jetty pylon.
Magistrate Brian Kucks did not record a conviction against the two men, who were each fined $1000.
Outside the court, they offered curt apologies but did not stop to talk to media as they left the building.

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