Was an Australian police officer named Malcom Rudd sexually assaulted by a kangaroo in Canberra? No, that's not true: the entire story was made up by a Canadian website that invents tales about bizarre crimes and weird sex acts for entertainment purposes. The events did not take place, none of it was real.
The story originated from an article published by World News Daily Report on September 29, 2018 titled "Australian police officer brutally beaten and sexually assaulted by kangaroo" (archived here) which opened:
Canberra | An Australian police officer has fallen victim to a brutal sexual assault by an aggressive kangaroo in heat reports the Canberra Morning Herald this week.
The attack occurred at 2 am yesterday after police officers responded to residents who were alarmed by an intruder on their property.
Police officers arrived on the scene to find an extremely aggressive kangaroo and attempted to scare away the animal, without success.
"He jumped on my partner, kicked him unconscious to the floor and started humping him and attempted to mate with him," Constable Pete Turnbull told reporters.
Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail so they may have confused it with a real news article:
Australian police officer brutally beaten and sexually assaulted by kangaroo
Canberra | An Australian police officer has fallen victim to a brutal sexual assault by an aggressive kangaroo in heat reports the Canberra Morning Herald this week. The attack occurred at 2 am yesterday after police officers responded to residents who were alarmed by an intruder on their property.
There are several clues the story is fake:
- The names of the police officers involved (Pete Turnbull and Malcom Rudd) sound suspiciously like Malcom Turnbull and Kevin Rudd, two former Australian Prime Ministers.
- The picture of the bloodied police officer actually shows Constable Nick Carter who got injured during a 2016 incident in Darwin, Australia (not Canberra).
- The kangaroo picture used to illustrate the story is actually from the United States:
North Ridgeville officers corral kangaroo on Lorain Road early Friday morning
NORTH RIDGEVILLE, Ohio - Just before 5 a.m. Friday, North Ridgeville officers got a call about a kangaroo roaming down Lorain Road near Stonebriar. Three officers responded and were able to get the kangaroo, named Foster, back into his pen on Island Road. No officers were injured while corralling Foster back into his pen.
The website World News Daily Report is a well known satire website specialized in posting hoaxes and made up stories. The disclaimer on their website is pretty clear about that even though you have to scroll all the way down the page to find it:
World News Daily Report assumes all responsibility for the satirical nature of its articles and for the fictional nature of their content. All characters appearing in the articles in this website - even those based on real people - are entirely fictional and any resemblance between them and any person, living, dead or undead, is purely a miracle.
It is run by Janick Murray-Hall and Olivier Legault, who also run the satirical Journal de Mourréal, a satirical site spoofing the (real) Journal de Montéal. Very often their stories feature an image showing a random crazy mugshot found in a mugshot gallery on the internet or on a stock photo website superimposed over a background of flashing police lights or crime scene tape.
Articles from the site are frequently copied (sometimes even months or years later) by varous fake news websites that omit the satire disclaimer and present the information as real.
We wrote about worldnewsdailyreport.com before, here are our most recent articles that mention the site:
- Fake News: Drunk Driver NOT Accused of Swallowing Breathalyzer To Avoid Arrest
- Fake News: Sperm Bank Janitor NOT Suspected of Fathering 20,000 Children Over 20 Year Period
- Fake News: Mother NOT Arrested, Did NOT Leave Children In Car For 9 Hours While At All-You-Can-Eat Buffet
- Fake News: Priest Did NOT Suck Venom Out of Genitals, Choir Boy Did NOT Get Snake Bite
- Fake News: Woman Did NOT Sue Samsung For $1.8M, Cell Phone NOT Stuck Inside Her Vagina
