Reykjanes District Court sentenced a man to pay damages for a jail cell mattress he attempted to eat while in police custody.

RÚV reports that the man in question was arrested at an Icelandair Hotel in Keflavík for refusing to pay for a dessert. According to police reports, the suspect was heavily intoxicated, so police considered it necessary to let him sleep it off at the local jail.

Police testified that during the nine hours he was in his cell, he was checked on a total of 17 times, including one trip to the toilet, one visit from a doctor, and being given water three times. Come morning, though, police discovered that at some point during his stay, the man had badly damaged one of the cell mattresses.

The suspect testified that he had been extremely hungry, but was given nothing to eat. As such, he felt he had no choice but to eat his own mattress, saying that he did not have any problems with eating leather.

The court found the suspect’s testimony spurious at best. He was sentenced to pay 20,000 ISK in damages.