The women, aged 29 and 25, made a film of their “animal crushing” exploits, as the disturbing practice is known, having been promised what the court in Darmstadt heard was a considerable amount of money by a man for the video.

More about the man could not be released as he is charged in a different case, the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported on Tuesday.

The women did not only step on mice, but also two lizards and three geckos, and ran over 12 mice in a car on the video, the court heard on Tuesday. They also filmed themselves burning mice with lit cigarettes.

The prosecutor said the “animal crushing” perversion was a rare kind of foot fetishism. “Customers who watch films with such content, satisfy themselves according to our information, by watching pretty women slowly step on the animals, while wearing socks, high heels or while barefoot,” she added.

The authorities used the video made by the women as evidence in the case. The 29-year-old woman was sentenced to a suspended sentence of nine months, and told to pay €500 to an animal protection organisation. Her 25-year-old friend is missing and could not be sentenced on Tuesday.

The defence lawyer criticised the sentence as particularly harsh. “One has to see that my client did not torture the animals for fun, rather that she needed the money that she had been promised in advance,” he said. He complained that the conditions of her sentence wrecked her plans to move to the United States to study business as she would no longer be allowed in the country.

The Local/hc